Caged Wolf
by RainingFlowers
Summary: Dangerverse AU. January Full Moon in the Marauders' seventh year, Sirius Black told Severus Snape how to go down into the Whomping Willow, to meet a fully grown werewolf. James Potter got there too late. What will happen to Remus, and his seven friends?
1. Betrayal

**Disclaimer: **None of these characters belong to me. The ones that belong to JKR belong to JKR, and the ones that don't belong to the oh-so-talented _whydoyouneedtoknow_, or Anne Walsh. If you can't tell them apart... well, go read Anne's Dangerverse.

**A/N: **This is an AU of the werewolf event in the Marauder's sixth year. I'll go into more detail at the bottom, but this is a sort-of AU of 'A Little Slice of Heaven', so it takes place in seventh year, but Evanie doesn't exist and Remus' mother didn't survive the fire.

* * *

Chapter 1- Betrayal

Remus blearily came to his senses. Then wished that he hadn't. Merlin, he hadn't felt so run-down since his first transformation, all those years ago… wincing, he took a half-conscious inventory of himself. His right leg felt like it was on fire, and his back had the tingly, not-uncomfortable feeling of 'hastily-Healed'. He found that his arms felt strangely stiff, as though he couldn't move them from his side.

_Must have been a bad Full Moon… I wonder where Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are._

Deciding that it was time to rejoin the world, Remus yawned. He frowned when he realised that one of his arms wouldn't move properly, but shrugged it off. It was probably because he had particularly injured that limb this time.

Alarm bells started ringing in Remus' mind as the sleep-induced fog in his brain started to clear and absorb more details about his current surroundings.

Something was wrong. The bed was not as comfortable as those in the Hogwarts hospital wing usually were, and he'd had his fair share of the hospital wing in all his seven years worth of Full Moons at Hogwarts. The sheets were slightly scratchy, and the pillow seemed thinner than usual.

Opening his eyes fully, Remus started to panic. This was not Hogwarts hospital wing, or the Shrieking Shack, or his dorm, or anywhere in Hogwarts, in fact. Hell, he had never seen this place before.

It was a tiny room, completely white. White ceiling, a metre or two above him; white walls surrounding the small room, and a white, polished floor, on which stood only his small bed and a white chair next two it. His sheet was practically threadbare, and his pillow was, as he had observed, very thin.

If Remus wasn't in a panic already, he was certainly thrown into one when he noticed two, final, important details.

Firstly, woven into the corner of his scratchy bed sheet was the black monogram '_DRCMC'_- Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

And finally, there was a thin, iron manacle chaining his right arm to the side of the bed.

* * *

Madame Pomfrey was used to having a patient the day or two after the Full Moon. Sometimes a day or two _before_ the Full Moon as well, depending on the time of moonrise. At first, her patient had been cautious and shy, but after the first tense couple of months, Remus Lupin warmed up to her and her Hospital Wing, and they became good friends. So, every month, the Hospital Wing would be alive with chatter, if Remus was feeling good. And even if he wasn't, then one of his friends or the other would most certainly be there to liven things up- either by dropping off a positive crate of sweets, to joke, or to talk. 

But this Full Moon, the infirmary lacked the warmth and laughter it normally held. The air was tense, very tense. An outsider would note that the nurse herself was worried and anxious. If said outsider was very observant, they would notice that it wasn't just one thing bothering her, but several. They would see that she was within the curtained bed quite a lot, only leaving to get some potion or the other from her office. The observer would be able to smell that the sterile scent of the wing was tinged with the coppery smell of blood.

Moving outwards, to the doors of the Hospital Wing, the observer would see an old man, well beyond the usual age boundaries of humans, with long white hair and beard, sitting in one of the chairs. His slumped posture showed defeat, and his blue eyes behind his half-moon glasses were devoid of their usual twinkle. His forehead was resting on his long, wizened hands and his elbows were resting on his knees.

A younger, but still considerably old woman, clad in a tartan dressing gown, approached her superior and friend.

"Albus?" She spoke in a distinctly Scottish accent, sounding tired. She had spent most of the night awake, and had not yet changed out of her sleeping attire.

Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, looked up. "Any news?" he asked, wearily.

Minerva McGonagall sighed. "Sirius Black claims that he was drunk, and not thinking properly," she said, softly. "He, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew are devastated, and I fear that Sirius has lost the friendship of all three of the others." Albus nodded, tiredly. Minerva paused, then sat down beside him. "How is Severus?"

Albus sighed, wearily. "Bad. Poppy is doing all she can, yet…" Albus spread his fingers wide. "None of us are sure whether he will make it."

Minerva rubbed her eyes. She still could not believe that this tragedy had taken place. Not even twelve hours ago, she had been getting ready for bed. An hour after moonrise, Peter Pettigrew had burst into her office, nearly hysterical and shouting about Remus Lupin, Severus Snape and James Potter. Once she had calmed him down somewhat, she had summoned Albus from his office and together they went down to the Whomping Willow immediately. What they had found there horrified her.

Severus Snape's mangled body had come into view first, in a position of being half dragged, half thrown hastily out of the way. At first, none of them even thought that he was alive, but after they saw the slow rise and fall of his chest, Albus quickly summoned Fawkes who took Severus immediately to the Hospital Wing. A little further in, they had come across what would have been a magnificent stag. It was severely injured, particularly its antlers and front legs. At the request of Peter Pettigrew, Minerva had re-transformed the animal into the bloodied form of James Potter. She was horrified, but luckily, his injuries were mostly superficial and a concussion. All his maladies had been fixed quickly by Madame Pomfrey.

And so that left Remus Lupin, in werewolf form, at the end of the tunnel, in the Shrieking Shack. The wolf looked furious, and was in the process of crashing open the trapdoor. It looked like it had been in a fight or two, and was obviously infuriated by having his prey taken away from him. Albus had sadly conjured a thick, sturdy cage around Remus before the wolf could to any more damage.

Back at school, the whole story had come out: how Remus' friends had become animagi in order to assist Lupin on Full Moons (Minerva was amazed by this- these three boys had accomplished one of the most amazing and complicated transfigurations in their fifth year); how Sirius Black had, in a drunken haze, told Severus Snape how to go down after Remus to the Shrieking Shack; and how James Potter, when he found out, went straight after them. Peter had taken it upon himself to find a teacher.

And so, here they were.

Minerva had no idea how many lives were ruined last night. Severus', for sure- even if he survived the attack, he would be permanently infected with lycanthropy, and Remus', as well. He had already been taken into custody at the Ministry, and although her own recollections of werewolf laws were hazy, Minerva had no doubts that they were severe. Suddenly, she was struck with a horrible thought.

_If Severus dies from his injuries, Remus will, almost certainly, be put down._

She shuddered. Remus was a wonderful, intelligent boy, who definitely did not deserve such a harsh fate. Even if Severus did not die, he was faced with a long Azkaban sentence.

Minerva's eyes began to water. Two lives permanently ruined from the mess of the last night. And probably more, as well. Remus' friends, the Marauders- she smiled, sadly, at the name of the small group- would never be the same again. Sirius had probably ruined the friendship of the four when he prodded Severus into the path of a werewolf, which he certainly would not have survived if he had no help. Even if Remus forgave Sirius, James probably wouldn't and Minerva knew that Sirius Black would not forgive himself. She had seen the look of complete and utter horror on his face when he finally realised what he had done.

So many people affected… Albus, probably for ever allowing a werewolf to enter Hogwarts, herself, for doing nothing about it… John Lupin…

_Oh Merlin. John Lupin… I hadn't even thought of him before…_

Remus' father had just recently lost his wife to a fire the past summer. He was still grieving, and when he found out about the events of the night…

"Oh Albus," Minerva said, her voice cracking. Dumbledore looked up at her. "What are we going to do now?"

He sighed, and rubbed his temples before replying. "I don't know, Minerva. I don't know."

* * *

Sirius Black felt worse than he had in his entire life. Which wasn't hard, if he really thought about it. He never felt bad when he pranked anyone. He never felt bad when he got detentions. He _couldn't_ feel bad when his mother as good as kicked him out of the house. But right now, somebody's life was hanging on the balance, and one of his best friend's life was in jeopardy, all because he was stupid enough to push Snape into going into the Whomping Willow. 

_God Moony, I'm so sorry, I won't blame you if you hate me forever… Sniv- Severus, everything you've ever said about me is right, I'm so sorry… Oh god, why, why, WHY did I do that?_

What had he been thinking? He knew how dangerous Moony was in werewolf form, especially to humans. Sending one down there was just as good as sending him to his death and it was only 'sheer dumb luck' that James had realised what he'd done and rushed after Snape. And Remus… had been taken into custody at the Ministry. Sirius didn't know much about werewolf laws, but he wasn't naïve enough to believe that they were lenient. James hadn't spoken to him since he'd run down to the Willow, Peter was following his lead, Snape was fighting for his life in the infirmary…

_Oh Christ, Lily and Letha and Danger, they're going to kill me…_

He transformed into Padfoot and howled. He put all his sorrow, and grief, and anger at himself into the loud, mournful sound. He could hear and smell people moving about, but he didn't care. He didn't care if someone heard him. He didn't care if someone found him. He wanted to reverse the clock and go back, back to before this all started. He wanted to go back so that Prongs found out earlier… he wanted to go back and not tell Snape how to follow Moony… he wanted to go back and not drink those extra bottles of Firewhiskey… to not play so many pranks on Snape so that he would never have felt the need to follow Moony… even to go back and prevent Moony's lycanthropy. Something, _anything_ he could do to change everything that had happened… but he could do nothing. No matter how much he wanted, he could do nothing to change what had happened. He had caused all of this gigantic mess, and he could do absolutely _nothing_ to help it. _Nothing._

The thought only made him howl harder.

He was half-aware that he heard footsteps coming behind him. He carried on howling, gradually loosening the tight knot that had formed in his stomach. But he was aware that no matter how much he howled, the knot would always be there. He would always be guilty of ruining two people lives. He would always feel sick, disgusted and angry with himself.

His howl wound down, and he became aware that he was no longer alone. Sniffing the air for a scent, he nearly choked on the strong smell of anger radiating from the person. Sorting through the emotions, he also found sorrow, hatred, and guilt. But one smell yanked so hard on the knot inside him that his eyes began to water.

It was betrayal.

Not necessarily a betrayal committed against that person, but a betrayal committed against their brotherhood. The friendship, the _love_ that had been exchanged between the Marauders, the trust that had been placed in him. He had forfeited that trust, with disastrous results. And now he was a helpless rider, powerless in the raging storm he had created.

"Change back," James' virulent hiss broke into his thoughts.

Sirius whined slightly, but did as he was asked.

* * *

James looked down at his best friend, his _brother_, slumped down in a corner. Sirius had disappeared some time before, and James had decided to leave him for a while. Currently, they were in one of the dungeons by the Potions classroom- he got the impression that Sirius hadn't been paying attention when he ran. 

_It's his own, bloody, idiotic fault._

James registered, distantly, how harsh his thoughts were. He didn't know if those emotions showed on his face, but, judging by Sirius' expression, they were probably coming through pretty strongly.

Sirius was slumped in the corner. He looked up at James, with fear, horror and sorrow in his eyes.

He still couldn't believe what had happened. _How_ could Sirius have been so bloody stupid?

He summed up his feelings with one, heartfelt word.

"Why?"

Sirius flinched as though he had been struck.

_I might oblige him about that sooner or later._

After several moments of staring at one another, hazel eyes and grey locked together, Sirius looked down and spoke.

"I don't know."

"You don't know." James repeated. His voice sounded deadly even to his own ears. Sirius curled in on himself, as though trying to go back through the wall or drop through the floor. "You don't know why you sent Snape to an almost certain death if I hadn't intervened. You don't know why he is now hanging onto life by a thread- a thread that may break any moment now. You don't know why Remus is now facing either death, or imprisonment in Azkaban."

Sirius didn't move during this calm, quiet speech. James' anger built up inside him, going up past boiling point until all he could see was red. He stalked up to Sirius, grabbed him by the collar, hurled him up and punched him, hard, in the eye.

Sirius fell back against the floor.

"HOW COULD YOU, SIRIUS? SEVERUS SNAPE IS DYING, BECAUSE OF YOU! REMUS, WHO'S PRACTICALLY OUR _BROTHER_, IS IN DEEP TROUBLE WITH THE MINISTRY, WHO MIGHT NOT EVEN LET HIM LIVE! HE TRUSTED YOU, SIRIUS! AND YOU GO AND DO THIS TO HIM!" James' eyes were on fire, and he wondered if he was seeing smoke curl around Sirius or whether it was his imagination. "THERE'LL BE AN INQUIRY ABOUT WHY THERE WAS A WEREWOLF AT HOGWARTS, AND DUMBLEDORE MIGHT LOSE HIS JOB! REMUS IS PROBABLY WAKING UP NOW, WONDERING WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, AND I DON'T THINK THAT HE'LL TAKE TO IT VERY WELL!" James was breathing heavily, staring down at Sirius, who had curled back up. He noticed that Sirius wasn't doing anything about his black eye, which was worsening by the second. There were tears rolling down his face.

This was so uncharacteristic of Sirius that James felt shaken. A small part of him wanted to sit down next to his brother, to put an arm around his shoulders and tell him that it was anyone's mistake. To tell him that they would get through this somehow, as only Marauders could. But he wasn't finished yet.

"He trusted us, Sirius," said James, his voice a mixture of emotions. Anger and sorrow were predominant. "He trusted all three of us with his secret. We trusted each other not to be so stupid. And you betrayed that trust."

He turned sharply on his heel and stalked towards the door. Half way out of the room, Sirius finally spoke up.

"I'm sorry."

His tone was so defeated, so sorrowful. It was little more than a whimper. It clenched at James' heart, how much Sirius must be suffering from his actions. He wanted to turn around, to comfort the person who he knew as his brother. Instead, he stayed where he was and closed his eyes.

"You betrayed us, Padfoot."

And he was gone.

* * *

Sirius was still sitting on the floor. His right eye was throbbing, but he didn't care. He had thought that he couldn't feel any worse than he had a few minutes ago, but he was wrong. All during James' speech, the knot had tightened and tightened, until it was in danger of snapping. But when James used his nickname, in such cold, clipping tones, the knot didn't just break; it shattered. Each piece of the knot was flung outward, hitting and rebounding and tangling until Sirius wanted to be sick. He flung himself at the door, pounding at it with his fists. 

"WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, PRONGS?" he cried. "I'VE SAID, I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M SO SORRY!" His knuckles were getting raw from pounding at the hard door. He sank to the floor, still pounding his bleeding fists into the door. "I'm so sorry…"

* * *

Unaccustomed to the tears, his sobs coming out in gasps, Sirius Black cried in the dungeons, wanting nothing more than to go back in time and undo everything he'd done.

* * *

A little down the corridor, James Potter heard his friend's cries. He punched the wall, unaware of the pain. He leaned forwards into the wall, dropping his head down between his arms. Not noticing that the stones around his hands were starting to get scorched, he desperately hoped that he could wake up and find out that this had all been a nightmare.

* * *

Outside the Hospital Wing, Albus Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards in all time, kept a constant vigil, waiting to hear more news of one of his students. He rarely looked as old as he did then, wondering how so much had gone so wrong so quickly.

* * *

In three close dormitories, four girls started to wake, unaware of the shocking news they would be receiving later in the day. One of the youngest had recently been through a lot of pain and suffering. The next oldest had experienced a close shave with fate already. The oldest was to live through suffering and war. 

But the last one was scheduled to have her life change today.

* * *

**A/N: **In case you haven't figured it out, this is going to be a rather angsty story. For those who want to know how it's going to differ from ALSoH... hmm, let's see. Katherine Lupin didn't survive the fire, but Letha's mum survived cancer, so Letha and Sirius are pretty much together and Evanie... didn't exist, but I wrote her in later. If there's anything else, you'll probably figure it out later in the story. 

So, please review!


	2. Shattering times

**A/N:** It's here! Two weeks of block, and another few weeks of getting into the schedule of re-starting school... ah well. Thanks to Anne, for beta'ing!

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to either Anne Walsh (_whydoyouneedtoknow_) or JKR herself. Only the plot belongs to me...

* * *

Chapter 2- Shattering times

John Lupin never slept well on Full Moons any more. Even after Remus had been at Hogwarts most of the year for nearly seven years, one night every month, he always tossed and turned when he tried to sleep, and woke up at odd hours of the night.

He remembered the devastation he had felt, thirteen years ago, when he realised that Remus had been infected with the terrible disease of lycanthropy. He remembered cursing Fenrir Greyback six times to Hell while he held his only son in his arms. His sweet, innocent little boy.

Remus had lost that innocence at the age of four. John would sometimes scream at the heavens; four was far too young for anybody to go through the monthly pain of transformations, for Merlin's sake!

On the first Full Moon night that Remus had spent at home, he'd been crying. It had been two months after he had first been bitten- his first transformation, as per the law, had been spent in hospital. It was obvious that the only memories he had of that night, of pain, were fresh in his mind. Remus had been especially clingy in the days after he came home, and John was barely able to look at the sight of Remus' first self-inflicted scars. The worst, though, was the slowly healing wound on his thigh, where he had received the lethal bite from Greyback.

That night, when they had to lock Remus in the special reinforced room, all of them were crying. Remus' small, heartbroken voice asking why, _why_ Mummy and Daddy had to leave him alone was enough to drive daggers through John's soul. He had held Remus in his arms, kissing the top of his head, wishing with all his heart that he could have prevented this. His tears had flowed freely down his cheeks as they had tucked Remus into the small blanket to keep him comfortable.

They had made one big mistake that night, one that they never made again.

Silencing charms had to be placed on the inside of the room.

If a dagger had pierced his soul earlier, then being forced to listen, helpless, to his son's suffering had to pierce his soul with nothing less than a spear. A heavy, sharp spear, John thought, one that drove straight to his heart, then shattered into a thousand pieces, taking his heart with it.

Before moonrise, they had heard their son, their _four-year-old­_ son, wailing for his parents. His parents who were only feet away, but could do nothing but stand and listen. Then, suddenly, at the moment of moonrise, the wails erupted into full-out screams. The words, "Mummy! Daddy! Please, it hurts!" could just be discerned from the screams of agony coming out of the room.

Almost ten painful minutes of heart-breaking screams finally changed into loud, painful howls, the cries of a wounded animal, soon lapsing into painful, sorrowful whimpers.

They had both cried that night, weeping for their little boy who was experiencing pain that nobody should experience. Katherine had sobbed into his chest that night, neither able to sleep…

Katherine. Another chapter in his tragedy-filled life.

Together, they had raised Remus with love and affection, adoring him in exactly the way that they would have adored him if he had never been bitten. But their happy family life was tainted, the horrible but inescapable duty of bringing Remus up to know something that nobody should have to know… that he might kill people.

Who wants to drum into their son's head that he might grow up to have blood on his hands? Who deserves the horror of knowing that, sometimes, he would became a dangerous beast, which he had no control over?

They played the part of a happy family. A happy, normal, loving family. And although the last was completely true, there was always the grey tinge in the air, taunting them.

But they did love. Without love, they would be nowhere. They loved Remus, they loved each other, and Remus himself, once he was old enough to understand, loved them for not deserting him when he became infected. Love was at the centre of their family, and, without love, they would be nowhere.

Of course, they had never reckoned that one of them would suddenly die.

Katherine had been taken away, with no warning, leaving behind her husband and her son. Her death was still painful, even after so many months. It seemed he was still in shock, still numb and in denial. He was sure that, if Remus hadn't been there, he would feel so much worse. Still, he felt guilty.

He had managed to get out of that fire. Why couldn't he have gotten Katherine out of the hotel as well? He blamed himself every day and nobody was likely to convince him otherwise.

He sighed, and turned over in bed. John would never get over how empty and cold his bed felt without Katherine, a comforting source of love and warmth by his side. Sometimes, when she was in a silly mood, she would get her violin and play a lively tune to get him to wake up in the mornings. He would groan, and bury his head under the pillow, and then she would laugh and poke him with the end of her violin bow, then he would make a face, then grab the violin bow and poke her back, then, with a giggle, she would abandon the violin altogether and they would lapse into a tickling match…

Muffling a sob and recognising that he was getting lost in the past, John sat up in bed, looking around the bedroom.

It was, frankly, a mess. Without Katherine there to dog his every step and pick up everything that he dropped, there were days-old clothes heaped in random piles on the floor. Empty bottles of butterbeer and Firewhiskey, the latter outnumbering the former by far, littered the windowsill and dressing table, and books were lying around everywhere.

_Katherine loved to be tidy. Everyone always called her a neat-freak…_

_Including me._

_And then she would pull a face at me and tell me that I wouldn't be able to get on without her…_

Glancing around, John had to admit that she had been telling the truth. He _couldn't _get along without her… not, at least, until now.

Seized by the sudden desire to make Katherine proud, to show that he _could_ tidy up after himself, he stretched and got up.

_If Katherine could tidy this whole house without using magic, I can tidy this one bedroom by hand too._

When he turned around to put his wand back on the table, he realised that he had never even picked it up in the first place. He shrugged.

Systematically, the clothes went into a neat pile by the door, which he would later take downstairs.

_Katherine would get me to magically wash and dry the clothes in the washing machine…_

The bottles went into a large bin bag that he retrieved from downstairs. The clinking, bulging black bag went into the landing, and he would take it to the glass recycling bins when he next went shopping.

_She so loved to recycle… any time that I Vanished something, I would turn around and there she would be, glaring at me…_

The books which, so far, had been thrown around shamelessly on the floor, were picked up and organised into three neat piles.

_Household information books- mostly Katherine's- then reference books- magical and muggle- and the novels_.

He picked up one of the thick, heavy books closest to the bed.

_A Guide to Gardening. _

_Katherine's._

Another, thinner book off the floor.

_Shakespeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. More like a Midsummer Night's Nightmare…_

_That_ thought went up in flames like the subject of his musings.

_Hmm. I think I'll pass that on to Remus…_

A couple of books lying closely, side by side.

The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian _and_ The Silver Chair_… where are the rest of the series?_

The remaining four books of CS Lewis' _The Chronicles of Narnia _were duly located and organised.

_The Last Battle… not quite the type of book for me, but Remus always seemed to like it the best. Of course, it seems to be the type of thing we would like, considering all facts…_

Remus, ever since he had read through the series, always claimed that the last in the seven books was his favourite. Why he liked it best was a tender subject with him, but everyone could see the main reasons why he would like it so much.

Puzzle, the donkey, had been forced to wear a skin not his own, given next to no choice about wearing it or not. He had been controlled, at first, by Shift, the Ape, being sheltered from the rest of the world. Then, when he came out of his concealment, he was ridiculed and shunned, with only a few kind hearts, like Jill Pole's, able to see past what he'd been forced to do.

Another reason was because of how it ended. Everyone was happy, living for eternity in the Real Narnia. Everyone's pains and troubles were past, people were reunited with old friends, and all were granted bodies of the prime of their lives. No diseases, no wars, no pain.

Anyone who had read the book and knew Remus would understand why Remus loved this book most out of the whole series.

John shook off the further reminiscing and placed the series with the rest of the novels.

Straightening up, John looked around his still, admittedly, rather messy room, and felt the first motivation he had since his wife had left him. As he moved around systematically, the room got steadily cleaner and cleaner.

He smiled. _Katherine would be proud of me._

* * *

Minerva McGonagall was looking into her mirror. Not because of her vanity, or any such nonsense- she sometimes wondered why she even had a mirror in her room- but staring at her reflection. 

As she had been for the last several minutes.

An old woman stared back from the glass. Her face was wrinkled, but anyone who saw her would have no doubt that this was a healthy and vigorous lady. Although her mouth had lines around it from scolding students, the frown lines could easily be interpreted as laughter lines for those who knew her. Indeed, those lines had been morphed from the former into the latter several times in the past, when a particular group of boys had pulled a prank that one felt the intense need to laugh at. As Head of their House, though, she had to tell them off and issue them with detentions before she could sit down in private and let out her giggles.

However, there was no laughter in her eyes now, as she gazed into their depths. Moving from the physical to the spiritual, her mind was asking her strong but troubled soul one question.

_Is this the face of the person who may be responsible for the total collapse of one man's world?_

For John Lupin had lost his wife mere months ago. The man had retreated into himself, becoming a ghost of who he used to be.

_Is it possible to kill a ghost?_ Minerva wondered whimsically.

_No,_ a voice in her head said. _Who are you, to bring such bad news to John's door? Must you add to his suffering?_

_But if not me, then who? _Minerva asked herself. _Who else but I can break it to him, before the newspapers do?_

_Your job is a teacher. You should never have this sort of situation on your hands. Stick with telling parents about their children's grades._

_But now that I do have this situation 'on my hands',_ she argued with herself, _can I _not _see it through? I am Remus' Head of House, as well as Deputy Headmistress._

_Exactly. Your qualifications and authority over Remus only extend to school work. Leave it at that._

_But if I leave it, who else will tell him?_

The other voice hesitated, but only for a second. _The Ministry will contact him. Or Albus will._

Minerva snorted. _And they are qualified better than I am, how, exactly?_

_Albus has the supreme authority around here. It should be him to break the news, not you._

_Didn't you just say that school authority didn't count? And besides, he's keeping a watch on Severus._

_The Ministry-_

_Are pompous fools who can't see past the end of their bigoted noses._ Minerva sighed.

_All right. I'll go._

With a heart full of dread, Minerva stood up and went over to her fireplace. Taking a pinch of Floo powder, she stared at it, wondering what she was going to do.

_Am I doing the right thing?_

_All right, that's it. BE QUIET!_

Oddly enough, the tone she used on misbehaving students also worked on her own doubts.

Head held up high, she threw the Floo powder into the grate.

* * *

Elsewhere in the castle, almost the same internal battle was occurring within another's mind. This time, though, the main participant was a seventeen-year-old boy, who was staring into the common room fire instead of a mirror. 

Sighing, he buried his face into his hands. Why was this happening? Life had been so nice before… so _normal_, if that word could ever be applied to this boy and his friends.

As one of those friends descended from the boys' dormitories' staircase, James Potter made up his mind. He glanced up, then went back to staring at the flames.

"Peter, go and get Lily, Letha, Evanie and Danger," he said without looking away.

Peter Pettigrew sighed, and nodded. Casting a glance around at the fortunately empty common room, the boy turned into a rat and scurried across the common room and up the staircase on the other side.

James still sat in the armchair, feeling the exhaustion in his bones. The flames before his eyes were dancing, almost mockingly, but he found comfort in their merry dance. It was a reminder that not all was lost in the world.

He was spent. Almost all his energy had gone, being angry with Sirius. It was so _hard_ to yell at his brother, to cause him so much pain, and yet James knew that Sirius deserved it.

A part of him, which he had forced down before, was still screaming at him to go back to Sirius and tell him everything would be fine. Everything would turn out all right, and they'd laugh at this stupidness later, like so many times before.

But this time was different. This time, people could die, and lives were completely shattered. James sighed, and slumped down in his chair. His thoughts turned to Remus.

_He'll probably have woken up by now, and be panicking. Nobody's probably even told him about what happened, and he'll be wondering what he's done. And none of the RCMC will even treat him like a person, knowing them._

_Idiots._

"James?"

He looked around at the person who had broken into his thoughts, and gave a wan smile at the redhead who was walking towards him. Lily was wearing a lilac dressing gown, her hair was loose around her shoulders and her eyes were confused.

"Peter said to come down here- how did he even get up there, anyway?"

"I'll explain later," said James, "But first we need to wait for the rest."

Lily looked at him curiously, obviously thinking about how tired and… unusual he looked, but trusted him and sat down next to him.

James looked at his girlfriend, curled next to him, and thought about how she would take the news. She had a temper, all right, and he didn't envy Sirius when she got hold of him. He himself had been on the receiving end of that temper an impressive number of times, normally when she was yelling at him for doing something completely pig-headed. But since he'd worked out how to get his head deflated a bit, they were going out together, he loved every moment he spent with Lily, and he wasn't going to let her go any time soon.

He looked up as more footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Aletha Freeman descended into the common room. Tall, black and athletic, Aletha had nearly lost her mother in the past summer to cancer. Thankfully, Sirius' cousin, Andromeda Tonks, a Healer, was able to stop the spread of the tumour and save Teresa Freeman. Another good point about Letha's mother surviving was that it enabled Sirius to comfort her, and prove that he wasn't quite the prat she always thought he was.

James winced.

_That might not actually last for very long…_

As Aletha sat down at James' gesture, a small glint of metal at her neck caught his eye. Looking at the source, he found a thin, silver chain that greatly complimented Aletha's chocolate-brown skin. He traced the chain down to her collarbone with his eyes, then mentally slapped himself for forgetting about her 'Truth' necklace.

Sirius and Aletha, once they had figured out what their names meant, thought it funny that they were 'The Truth and the Star'. Everyone else latched on, and Remus had once commented on them being 'What a combination'. Later in the year, the Marauders had come together to buy the two of them a pendant each, Aletha's bearing the word 'Truth' on the end and Sirius' 'Star'. Aletha, as far as he could tell, had never taken hers off.

James was shaken out of his musings for a third time as the next person made her way down the staircase. He supposed that he was making a bit of an assumption, inviting Danger here, but anyone with half a mind could see that Remus was hopelessly in love with Danger and vice versa. And that entitled her to know exactly what was going on here.

Danger rubbed her eyes, looked curiously at James, and sat down in the armchair between Aletha's and the one that he and Lily were currently sharing.

James continued staring into the fire, with the girls either too tired to talk, or respecting that he wanted to wait until Evanie and Peter came back. He was just grateful that he had a few more minutes to ponder how to say what he needed.

As another pair of footsteps came closer, James looked up. Peter Pettigrew and Evanie Mead were coming softly down the staircase. The long scar running from Evanie's cheek down into her chest made James wince as he remembered how she came by it.

The summer before, Evanie had experienced a close encounter with a werewolf. She had been asleep, camping in her back garden with a couple of friends. Luckily, she woke up just in time to hear something wrong outside, and went out to investigate. Upon seeing a crouching, canine shape, she had quickly ducked back into the tent and woke up her two friends, hoping to get them inside the house before the werewolf noticed them and attacked. Unfortunately for her, one of them had nearly screamed when she heard about the werewolf, which caused the beast in question to pounce. Pushing them ahead of her, Evanie had sprinted back towards her house, which, luckily, wasn't too far away from the tent.

Her two friends had got back safely.

Evanie hadn't.

Fortunately, the noise her friends had made, while alerting the werewolf to them, had also awoken her parents. They were able to stop the attack before it got any worse. Evanie had spent a few days in hospital, with everyone fearing that she had been infected. When the Healer announced that the worst of her injuries extended only to her scars from the wolf's claws, the cries of relief had been heard throughout the whole ward.

Evanie had stayed in St Mungo's for a couple more days, and on one of them, Peter had accidentally taken a wrong turning when coming back from the toilet. With Sirius visiting Aletha's mother so often, the Marauders were spending a fair amount of time at the hospital. Peter, when he had seen Evanie, had recognised her from Hogwarts and begun talking to her. A couple of months later, she was friends with all the Marauders and going out with Peter.

James smiled tiredly at the two of them, as they sat down in the last remaining armchair together.

"Well," he started talking uncertainly, "Now that we're all here-"

"Where are Sirius and Remus?" Aletha interrupted.

James grimaced. "Actually," he said, "that's partly why we need to talk to you."

* * *

Danger didn't like how the conversation was starting. 

James Potter looked so tense, even with Lily curled up next to him. His eyes seemed so… hollow. As if his life had been shattered. She also noticed that he had a few fresh scars on his arms, and moved as though he had been recently healed. Looking closer at the cuts, which looked curiously like bites, she began to think that she recognised them from somewhere…

_Oh, right. When I went to visit Remus in the holidays after Full Moons. He was always covered in them…_

_Hang on. It was the January Full Moon last night._

_So James has a couple of werewolf inflicted scars, Remus and Sirius are missing, and James and Peter both look as if they've got the worst news in the world to tell us._

_I don't like this at all._

Danger, suddenly panicking slightly, sat forward in her seat and fixed James with a beady stare.

"What's happened?"

James started, looking at Danger with a slight expression of surprise. He shook his head, looked around at everyone, and started talking.

"There's something you need to know about the four of us," he began. "You all know that story about Moony's mum being ill all the time, and he had to go back to be with her?" Lily, Aletha and Evanie nodded. Danger was getting impatient. "Well, it's poppycock. Peter, Sirius and me started noticing, around second year, a couple of strange things about him, and we eventually worked it out."

James paused, and took a breath.

"He's a werewolf."

Lily started, and looked back at James as though she thought she hadn't heard properly. Aletha's eyes widened slightly, but otherwise she didn't seem particularly upset by the news. It was Evanie who let out a little whimper, clutched at Peter and raised a hand to touch the scars that marred her features.

"He's all right," said James hastily, "He's always careful on his transformation nights, either locked up or somewhere safe."

Evanie relaxed a bit, but still looked slightly afraid.

Danger had raised her eyebrows at this revelation of James'. Was this all that the gathering at, while not an ungodly hour, but still rather early, was all about? She doubted it.

"Yes, I knew that-" she said impatiently, only to be cut off by the incredulous yelps of James and Peter.

"What?" James half-yelled at her. "How do you know?"

Danger sighed at him. She might as well briefly explain how she knew, since they obviously weren't going to get anywhere until she did…

"Well, we all knew that Remus was going away all the time, supposedly to visit his sick mother, but he always came back looking like he was the one who was sick. It doesn't take a genius to notice that he left every month, and it's only another step to look at the calendar to see that it was every Full Moon that he disappeared for a couple of days. And then, to solidify my suspicions, Peter came to me with a little part of what I knew had to be an Animagus transformation spell. That's when I realised that the three of you must be trying to become Animagi to help Remus when he was transformed."

All five of her companions were now looking at her with open-mouthed astonishment.

"What?" Danger asked in a cutting tone, glaring at the two Marauders. "_You_ figured it out, how hard could it be?"

James, who'd dragged his eyes off Danger for a few seconds to glare at Peter when she had mentioned the Animagus spell, shook his head slightly.

"All right, so you knew," he said, "How come you didn't tell anyone?"

Danger snorted. "Do you_ think_ I would have?" She stared at James witheringly.

"As illuminating as this all is," Aletha cut in, "I don't think that this was the point of the point of this mini-meeting, so could you please get to it?"

James shook his head at Danger once more, but latched again into his story telling.

"Well, as Danger has already _kindly_ mentioned, the three of us became Animagi to help Moony out at Full Moons. It took us a while, but by fifth year, we could all transform into animals at will and play with Remus when he was transformed."

"You're an Animagus?" Lily looked at her boyfriend with newfound wonder. "What forms do you have?"

"I'm a stag, Peter's a rat and Sirius is a dog."

"What kind of dog?" asked Aletha in interest.

Peter laughed. "A big, black shaggy one. Playful as hell but seems to get fleas like he's a magnet for them."

Letha nodded satisfactorily. "Sounds like him."

Everyone shared a short laugh, but it died down quickly.

Danger rolled her eyes.

"Can we just get to the point?" she asked impatiently. "What's happened that you need to tell us all about now?"

James started shifting around in his chair.

"Well… last night…"

"Was a Full Moon, yes, I know," cut in Danger. "What happened?"

James looked up in surprise again, but carried on.

"Moony went with Madame Pomfrey to the Whomping Willow-"

"What's the Whomping Willow got to do with anything?" This time it was Evanie who interrupted. Danger almost threw her hands up in the air.

_For Merlin's sake- what happened last night? Can't we just get to the point?_

Peter was answering Evanie's question.

"Under the Whomping Willow is an underground tunnel which leads to the Shrieking Shack. Moony spends his transformation nights there- it's completely safe, with the Willow at the top of the tunnel which stops people from getting in, and also stops the werewolf from getting out if he managed to get down into the trapdoor from the Shrieking Shack."

"How do you get into the Whomping Willow?" Lily asked, genuinely curious.

"There's a particular knot on the tree," answered James, his voice growing heavier as though this was getting closer to the bad news. "Which, when you poke it with a long stick, makes the Willow freeze long enough for you to get down into a hollow between its roots."

"Nobody was supposed to know about it," Peter carried on. "Only Dumbledore, McGonagall, Madame Pomfrey and Remus. Only Moony told us about it, obviously, so we could get in after him when we started staying with him on Full Moons."

Danger, sensing that they were getting somewhere near to the heart of the matter, tensed and leaned even more forward in her chair.

"Sirius got drunk last night," James started saying heavily, "and he bumped into Snape. Snape'd been noticing Remus was disappearing for a couple of years by now, and last night he'd seen Moony and Madame Pomfrey crossing the grounds towards the Willow. He cornered Sirius, who'd just been on a drinking spree." James sighed heavily, and closed his eyes.

"Sirius told Snape how to get into the Whomping Willow. And he went in."

Danger's heart stopped beating. Vaguely, she heard Lily's gasp, Evanie's faint cry, Aletha's voice asking James a question, then footsteps storming out the portrait hole. She couldn't breathe. Sirius had… what? No, she couldn't have heard properly, that was absurd…

Had Snape survived the attack? He wasn't her _friend_, exactly, but they had become more like acquaintances… how do you survive a werewolf attack? Evanie had her parents' intervention… had Severus had any help?

_Probably James when he found out… he had to get those scars from somewhere…_

Pulling herself from her thoughts, she surfaced just briefly enough to hear James say that Snape was in a critical condition in the hospital wing, and Remus was in the custody of the Ministry.

Something inside her shattered.

_How_ could Sirius have been so… so _stupid_? He had been _trusted_ to keep Remus' secret for him, and been _trusted_ with the secret tunnel for the transformations. It should have been an _honour_ to be trusted with something like that, and _trust_ wasn't just something thrown away into a bottle.

And Remus… she didn't even want to think about how Remus was doing. He was in the custody of the Ministry, for Merlin's sake!

_Oh God…_

She could remember with clarity the times they had spent together. That time by the Shrieking Shack, two years ago…

_How I enjoyed teasing him… I had known for so long that he was a werewolf, maybe I should have just told him…_

But no. She had wanted Remus to tell her of his own accord, showing that he trusted her. She had waited so long for him to finally trust her enough, to let her in, to look into her eyes and tell her the truth.

And then she would look right back and tell him two things.

_One, I already know._

_Two, I love you anyway._

She had longed for that day for so long… and now it would never happen.

Because Sirius, being the complete and utter idiot that he was, had spoiled everything. He had gone and as good as killed Snape and Remus.

In a distant corner of her mind, she marvelled at how Sirius had broken the promise, betrayed the trust. It wasn't only Remus who Sirius had betrayed; she felt like Sirius had torn her heart out, and thrown it, still beating, onto the floor.

Was it that easy to toss such a deep friendship out of the window?

Did fidelity and friendship, which meant so much to her, mean so little to Sirius?

Why had he betrayed the fidelity and friendship bestowed upon him?

How could he have ruined the lives of so many people, including her love's, and so hers as well?

Only vaguely aware of the deepening hollowness inside her stomach, Danger tilted back her head and screamed.

She didn't even notice as all the windows in Gryffindor Tower blew out.

* * *

John Lupin hurtled down the corridor in the Ministry of Magic, adrenaline pumping through his body, his mind almost blank. Minerva McGonagall was following at a more sedate pace, to give father and son more time together. 

_Just when my day was starting out so well…_

He turned a corner and almost crashed straight into a middle-aged ministry worker.

"Sorry," he muttered, dashing off again before the woman he'd almost flattened could say anything.

He flew down another corridor, then had to wait briefly to register and be cleared for visiting.

_For the sake of Merlin! This is my SON we're talking about!_

Having received the directions to Remus' ward, he careened down corridor after corridor, finally stopping outside a heavy, metal, handle-less door and waited for the wards to match his aura to the one that had just been registered.

After a few seconds, which felt like hours to John, a doorknob finally appeared on the door. He wrenched it open and dove in.

Barely taking in the small, drab and white surroundings, John flung himself towards the source of the wordless cry which had sounded when he first came into the room. Before he knew what was happening, he was holding his son in his arms, kissing and crying into his hair.

His mind and heart were numb with shock and disbelief. Vaguely, he noted how the current scene resembled that of the first night so many years ago, when then, too, he had held Remus in his arms, crying into his hair.

He didn't notice the questions that Remus was asking him, through his own obvious shock and terror. Father held son, stroking his hair and exchanging comfort just with each other's presence.

_Why is this happening to us?_

* * *

**A/N:** So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Awful? Make you cry, whether from the content or the badness? 

I disclaim the line from TwRTD. If anyone notices it.

Review! Review love is good!


	3. Surprises, Good and not so good

**Disclaimer:** I am RainingFlowers, and I own all of the Potterverse and Dangerverse... oh no. Sorry. Typo in the script. They belong to Jo Rowling and Anne Walsh, respectively.

**A/N:** Yup, she's _finally_ updated... enjoy the longer chapter anyway! Thanks go to Anne for beta'ing.

* * *

Chapter 3: Surprises, Good and Not-So-Good

Sirius was still sobbing in the dungeons, his hands bloody from pounding at the walls and his face swollen from crying. He felt so lost, so helpless. And so guilty. Never before had he been involved in such a huge, headline-deserving event, much less the _cause_ of it. His mind was full of memories from not so long ago, with James' hazel eyes flashing at him in anger, hurt and betrayal.

How could he feel so hollow, and yet still full of guilt and sorrow? Was that even possible?

He didn't know how long he had been crying, crumpled in the corner of the dungeons. He just wanted to stay there forever, hiding from the rest of the world…

* * *

Aletha stormed down the stone corridors leading to the dungeons. Her ears were ringing, and her face was in such an expression that any sensible living creature that came across her would run away, whimpering. Even the odd portrait along the dungeon corridor was shying away from her murderous appearance.

_'Second door on the right, down the Potions corridor,' James said._

_I hope he's still there._

_He'd _better_ still be there._

_Because if he's not, then I'll have to go look for him._

_And _that_ will make me even _more_ angry._

_And he does _not_ want that, whether he possesses common sense or not._

Her thoughts returned to the actions with which Sirius had proved that he did not possess said common sense.

_Stupid… idiotic…blabbering… traitorous…_

She reached the second door on the right and flung it open.

The heavy door swung wide on its hinges, smashing into the stone wall opposite. The resulting crash sent vibrations throughout the whole of the dungeon, echoing around the reverberating walls. The force was such that even Aletha's eardrums were almost sent into shock.

Her eyes caught sight of a flurry of movement in the opposite corner.

Once her eyes and ears had readjusted, the small huddle she had seen moving resolved itself into her boyfriend.

EX_-boyfriend._

Sirius lifted his swollen, red face to look up. His eyes flickered slightly as he winced from the light streaming through the door that Aletha was framed in.

Then his eyes widened slightly. He gave a soft whimper, then buried his head back into his arms and seemed to try and burrow his way further into the corner.

Aletha started walking towards him.

"If you're trying to disappear, it's not working," she said in cold, clipping tones as she stalked.

Sirius flinched, then sighed. He seemed to slowly unfold, first uncurling, then sitting up, then standing, a trifle unsteadily, and using the wall as a support. Aletha noticed an impressive shiner that Sirius sported, in amongst the red swelling.

_Probably James' doing._

She took another closer look at it, with the eye of an amateur Healer.

_Merlin, that was one hell of a punch… it still looks like it's throbbing…_

Her sudden surge of pity and protectiveness was immediately overwhelmed by the resurfacing anger. She tuned back in, to look into Sirius' multi-coloured face staring at her in resignation and sorrow.

"Yes?" His voice was barely a whisper.

Aletha slapped him. Hard.

The blow sent him reeling backwards, his head colliding with the wall. He collapsed in on himself, once more crumpling into a heap in the corner.

"Sirius Valentine Black, you are such a bloody IDIOT!" Aletha was almost screaming at him. "You air-headed, insensitive DRUNK!" She _was_ screaming now. "I thought that you valued your friends. I'd thought that you actually cared about them. I'd believed that, for all the 'tough guy' façade you put on, underneath all that there was a kind, loyal Sirius Black. Maybe that person exists. Maybe he doesn't. Right now, I'm leaning towards you not having a conscience whatsoever. You and all your talk of Marauders' unity, Marauder's trust and brotherhood…"

Aletha took another loathing glance at Sirius, who was still crumpled. His cheek, from what she could see of it, had quickly developed a hand-shaped bruise from where she had slapped him. He barely moved, except from flinching at her words and the occasional stifled sob.

Letha started pacing around, throwing her words towards Sirius.

"I don't care that Remus is a werewolf. Maybe it's because I'm Muggle-born, so I wasn't raised with scary stories about how evil and nasty werewolves are. But, no matter what he's like once a month, when he isn't even _him,_ Remus is a good, caring person. He deserves better than a stupid friend like you."

She paused in her ranting, to absent-mindedly rub at her neck, where there was a growing feeling of discomfort. Her hand encountered a thin chain of unnaturally warm metal. Letha lifted her necklace up from her neck almost without thinking about it, not yet wondering why the silver chain was burning.

"You know what's the worst?" she said, distractedly. "I really thought that you'd changed. Ever since my mum nearly died, and you were just… there, for me. I was convinced that I finally knew you." The heat from her necklace hadn't died down, despite being held away from her neck.

_What is wrong with this thing…_

Looking down, she saw that it was her 'Truth' necklace giving out the heat. Having worn it for so long, she was so used to it that she hadn't even registered before that something was wrong with it. In fact, she realised, it had been heating up on and off all morning, but she just hadn't noticed it.

_The Truth and the Star…_

She unclasped the chain, letting it slide through her fingers until it was only dangling from her palm.

"Sirius, look at this."

His head jerked upwards, as if afraid of what she was going to do. When he saw that she was holding her necklace out, his hand went up to his own neck almost unconsciously. Undoubtedly, he was feeling for his own 'Star' necklace.

"At first, these things started off as a joke. I thought it was pretty funny, but I wore it anyway. Over time, it's become part of my everyday life. Stupid as it sounds, I think of you whenever I see it, and I feel so happy and warm inside. They link us together, almost. The necklace makes me smile the same way that you did.

"And now? You're such an idiotic, stupid, babbling prat. I don't want this any more. To steal Lily's line; you make me SICK. I wish that you would jump in the lake, or just disappear. And take this with you."

She tossed her silver necklace into Sirius' face, not even waiting for it to land before she turned towards the door.

Because she was faced away from him, Letha didn't see Sirius catch the necklace before it hit his bruised face. He jumped upwards, as though getting more of his spirit from holding Letha's necklace, and dived towards her. He caught her just on the wall by the door and pinned her there, forcing her to look at him.

"Look," he said, leaning his face down until it was only an inch or two away from hers. "I know I'm an idiot, and I've said I'm sorry." His grey eyes were full of sorrow and determination. "What more do you want me to do?"

She looked back at him, making sure her disgust was evident in her eyes. "Go and make sure Snape survives," she said, her cold tone dripping with sarcasm. "Make sure that he doesn't have lycanthropy. Get Remus back from the Ministry. And while you're at it, you may as well change the werewolf laws, or wipe out lycanthropy altogether."

She stared at him defiantly, watching the determination waver and collapse once more back to hopelessness.

"Or, on second thought," she sneered. "Just disappear. Go away. Like I said before, jump in the lake or something." One more look of disgust, and she pushed him out of the way.

Sirius was left standing alone in the dungeons, clutching Aletha's silver 'Truth' necklace.

* * *

"_Merlin!_"

James swore explosively as a sudden wind enveloped them all and whipped their clothes around their bodies. The notices on the Common Room notice board flapped around fiercely, and the fire was immediately extinguished.

"The windows have all blown out!" Peter yelled, over the noise of the wind. He clutched his clothes tighter to his body.

"Yeah, we'd figured that one out already, Wormtail!"

Peter gave James a scathing look, as screeches and screams floated down from the dormitory stairs. It seemed as though all the windows up there had been shattered as well.

_Thank Merlin that they blew _out_. If they'd blown inwards, we'll have God-knows-how-many injuries to deal with as well._

The fierce wind was starting to die down slightly, but the chill remained.

"What's happened to Danger?" Lily had rushed to her side when she'd started screaming, and was now holding the younger girl upright by the shoulders. Danger's head slumped to one side; she was evidently unconscious.

James thought quickly. They needed to find out what was wrong with Danger, repair all the windows, and reassure the rest of the Gryffindors that it was nothing to worry about.

"Evanie?" The girl in question looked towards him. "Can you try and get Danger to the hospital wing, so Madame Pomfrey can have a look at her?"

"Isn't she dealing with Snape?"

"Ah, crud… Well, just try and make her as comfortable as possible, preferably out of sight from the rest of the house."

Evanie nodded, and James turned to the remaining two of his friends.

"Peter, get to repairing all the windows here in the common room, and Lily, can you make sure all the girls know… erm…" He tried to think of a suitable excuse for the windows being completely shattered. "Some people were practicing their spellwork, they got frustrated and so they accidentally lost control of the spell?" Lily considered the story for a moment then nodded her affirmative. "Okay, I'll do the same with the boys… Oh, and you might have to repair the dormitory windows of the people who can't manage that level of magic yet."

"Should we get them to stay up there, or to let them down?" Lily asked.

James contemplated.

_Preferably, we don't want anyone to see Danger unconscious… The only dormitory we can take her into without questions asked would really just be ours, because it's the only one that's empty… But we can't take her up there just now, not with the state that everybody's probably going to be in._

"Tell them to stay in the dorms until we say they can go to breakfast," James decided. "It's pretty early right now anyway, and I doubt that anyone would be up if nothing had happened. That way, we can get everything repaired and tell everyone to tidy up their rooms, considering what a mess this wind would have made. Then we can try to figure out what's wrong with Danger, and if necessary take her up to our dorm."

Lily nodded, and went off to her own destination.

"Do you want me to help Peter with the Common Room, once I'm finished here?" Evanie asked.

James looked around at the room. The several windows were completely devoid of glass, bits and pieces of parchment were scattered around everywhere and all the tapestries and furnishings looked slightly windblown and ruffled. Even some of the excess stuffing of the armchairs had been blown around.

"Yes please, Evanie."

"No problem. Now go and make sure the boys aren't creating more chaos than there already is."

James turned around, and hurtled up the boys' staircase. Only then did he finally think over what had just happened.

_Wow._

_That was an _amazing_ piece of magic Danger used there…must have taken a lot of power out of her._

_Hope she'll be okay._

_Still amazing, though._

He pounded up to the first landing, and went into the first year boys' dormitory.

The scene was exactly as he'd expected and Evanie had predicted: chaotic. There were sheets, bedcurtains, and parchments blown around everywhere, and the inhabitants of the room were halfway between the stages of shock and running around like headless hippogriffs.

"Not to worry!" he bellowed, getting their attention. The five boys seemed to calm down and look at him, expectantly.

James pointed his wand at the hole in the wall that used to be a window. "_Reparo._"

He sensed the glass shards flying from the ground back towards the tower, until they came together once more and fitted themselves back into the window frame. The eleven to twelve year olds spoke up in gratitude and questioning.

"Thanks, Potter."

"What'd happened?"

"Couldn't've done it sooner, could you?

"Thank you, Mr. Head Boy!"

James flicked his finger towards the boy who'd said the last. He was a small, energetic boy called Felix Tarmo who he'd met on the train, noticed James' Head Boy badge, and was now forever referring to him as 'Mr. Head Boy'.

"As I said," James began again, "that was nothing to worry about. Just some people who decided to practice their spells early in the morning. Someone got a bit frustrated, and lost control of the spell. Everything's fine."

"Wow…" Felix seemed awestruck. As a muggle-born, he was probably still in awe, James thought affectionately. "Will _we_ learn how to blow up windows?"

James laughed. "Don't hold your breath, Felix."

The boy still looked amazed.

"Anyway," James said to the rest of the boys. "Get this tidied up, then wait until we say that you can go downstairs. We still need to do a lot of tidying up in the Common Room and we don't want you lot down there yet."

He walked out and closed the door to a chorus of "Yes, sir" and "Yes, Mr. Potter."

The scene was repeated in the second years' dormitory, but the Reparo spell was harder to hold this time. He supposed that it was rather difficult to repair an object when its pieces were around eight floors underneath it. He managed the third years' windows, but that took a fair amount of energy.

In the fourth years' dorm, he sat down on one of the beds. Instead of doing it himself, he ordered all of the occupants to jointly perform the charm on the window, to their great amusement. In the fifth years' dorm, he lay down on one of the beds, giving out orders and holding conversation from there.

"It was just someone getting over-enthusiastic with a spell…"

_Why is there a lump in the middle of this bed?_

"… You'll have to stay up here for a bit, to tidy everything up…"

_What's that I smell, I wonder…_

"Can you cast _Reparo_ together?"

_If that's what I think it is…_

"Yeah, that's great… whose bed am I currently borrowing?"

James' hand slithered under the bed, and met a smooth, glassy surface.

_A-ha!_

"Oh, so it's yours?" A short, brown-haired boy had stepped forward to claim the bed. "You're… Alan Herbert, right?"

The boy nodded, looking slightly wary.

"Nothing to be afraid of. Just want to ask…" James cheerily pulled out the object. "Why have you got a bottle of Firewhiskey stashed under your bed?"

Alan suddenly looked very alarmed, and immediately started stuttering. "Erm… Well… you see…"

James grinned. "Don't worry. I won't do anything… this time," he added. "On one condition."

Alan looked relieved, then suddenly wary again. He knew about the Marauders; who didn't?

"Yes?"

James thought. "Well, two conditions," he amended himself. "One, you let me keep this." He threw the bottle between his hands. "And two, you find a better hiding place next time."

He laughed at the startled faces of the rest of the boys. "Okay, guys, tidy this up and go to breakfast."

He got up and walked towards the door, still chuckling.

"Erm… James?" Alan Herbert's voice made him look back. "We won't say anything to McGonagall if you won't."

James resisted the urge to burst into guffaws, and drew his hand across his lips.

Outside, he cast a silencing charm on himself and leaned against the wall, laughing hysterically.

His laughter would have been so much more genuine if part of his hysteria wasn't crying for the déjà vu feeling of Sirius and himself hiding _their_ Firewhiskey under _their_ beds in _their_ fifth year.

* * *

Danger dreamed.

She didn't know why she was dreaming, or how she was asleep, but she dreamed.

Cacophony, madness… a blur of blue over there…

"…us! No…"

A large patch of red around there…

"…ways be wi…"

A strange mixture of different reds…

"…all we ca…"

More colours. More sounds. Were the voices familiar? Maybe. They sounded like she _should_ know them.

"We'll get through this… Somehow…"

Danger jerked. _That was me!_

But as she tried to look at the colour patch associated with the last sentence, she fell through another whirlwind of colour and a huge voice began calling to her. All she got now was an impression of grey.

_Why the iambic tetrameter? _

* * *

Remus Lupin was scared. Scared, and confused.

He wanted to know what was going on, yet, at the same time, he didn't. Anything that had involved his evident arrest during Full Moon was bound to be bad.

He almost snorted at his thoughts. _Well, duh._

Still locked in the embrace with his father, with the comforting feeling of having his hair stroked, Remus turned his head sideways so he could lean on his dad. The embrace, while comfortable, still felt slightly incomplete, seeing as Remus could only wrap one of his arms around John. The other arm… he didn't want to think about that.

After he had woken up, he had panicked. Awful thoughts about what may have happened rushed through his head. Did he attack someone? Had anything happened to his friends?

Maybe it had just been a sighting… but no. It couldn't have been that; it wouldn't have called for such a big reaction.

Would it?

Then again, what if it had actually been an attack? Was there currently a riot at Hogwarts, of parents who now had lycanthropes as children? Or- worse yet- parents who had just lost a child? Maybe newspaper stands were shouting out the news all over the country, and perhaps Dumbledore was facing an inquiry, and everyone was revolting against the very _idea_ of having a werewolf at Hogwarts, and everyone alive at school would be shocked and outraged and appalled, and Danger and Aletha and Lily would probably be scandalized, and Evanie- oh, heavens, Evanie would hate him, and James, Sirius and Peter would be exposed as illegal animagi, and…

When his thoughts had rolled round to the Marauders, he had forced himself to calm down.

_Even if the werewolf was scenting fifty people that he wanted to get at, he wouldn't be able to overpower both a stag and a big dog. Dog alone, maybe, same for the stag, but the wolf _wouldn't_ be able to get away from both at the same time._

_So, that means… _

_Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no no no…_

It had seemed that thinking was helping none whatsoever. Remus had given in to the inevitable and surrendered to an absolute panic.

He didn't know how long he had been panicking, his thoughts incoherent and his mind almost disengaged. He vaguely remembered tugging at his chained arm repeatedly, as though hoping he could escape. He had a few grainy memories of shouting and crying out. It had felt like forever and a year until the door was finally flung open, and his dad had charged in.

"What happened?" he mumbled quietly, coming back to the present.

He felt the rise and fall of John's sigh, and leaned backwards to look at his father.

"Dad, tell me. What happened?" Dimly, somewhere in his mind, he registered that he would feel the hysterical effects some time later. Right now, however, he just wanted the facts. "Was it just a sighting?" he asked, when his dad didn't answer. His hope was quashed at the look of sorrow in John's eyes. "An attack?"

John sighed again, showing no inclination to answer, and attempted to pull his son towards him once more. Remus, however, resisted those attempts and scooted as far back as possible. "Dad, tell me, please," he pleaded. "I need to know."

John leaned backwards and closed his eyes. Then he sighed once more- or was he taking a deep breath? He opened his eyes again, looked at Remus, and was just about to answer when the door opened again.

"Professor McGonagall!"

"Remus, Mr. Lupin." McGonagall nodded to both of them. "I would say 'I trust you are well', but the current situation seems to make that unnecessary, wouldn't you agree?"

His professor's dry humour brought a reluctant smile to Remus' face. "Take a seat, professor." He indicated the only chair in the room, while John remained sitting on the foot of Remus' bed.

The deputy Headmistress got straight to the point. "Have you told him?" she asked John. He shook his head wordlessly, as though he was unable to speak. His face held a number of emotions; sorrow, pity, hurt… wanting to protect his son, yet feeling like a failure, and a world-weary question of _why_ all this was happening to him.

"Remus, then."

He turned to his teacher, still feeling his father's eyes on him.

"Currently, Severus Snape is under the care of Madame Pomfrey in the Hogwarts' Hospital Wing."

Remus turned cold. _Of all the people it could have been, it _had_ to have been _him_, didn't it…_

"He is alive, and Madame Pomfrey is working diligently to prevent him from anything long-term, other than lycanthropy. He was the only one involved, other than James Potter in stag form, who dragged him away and herded you back down the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack."

Remus digested this information. Snape was alive, though, by the sounds of it, only just. He had obviously been infected, if the attack needed him to be dragged away…

Something that McGonagall said finally registered in his mind. "You know about… James?"

There was a strange glint in her eye. "Yes, Mr. Lupin, I know all about what you and your friends would get up to." Her tone of voice was something between being reproachful and impressed. "Amazing. And am I correct in guessing that you were a great help to them during the process?"

Remus nodded. John looked lost. "What am I missing?" he asked.

"The three best friends of Remus' who chose to become Animagi in order to stay with, and so help, him during Full Moons."

John's mouth dropped open.

"But professor," Remus said. "How did I manage to get at Snape in the first place? Was this in the grounds, or somewhere else?" Again, the feeling of getting the facts straight now, reacting later.

"It was in the tunnel under the Whomping Willow." Here, McGonagall closed her eyes, as though this was the part of the evening that had hurt her the most. "Sirius Black had been drinking, and he was the one who told Severus how to get in the tunnel."

Was his hearing supposed to be like this? He could hear his heart beating, slightly irregularly… and he could hear the blood rushing past his ears. The universe seemed to have stopped, as he stared, open-mouthed, at the professor. The various injuries of his body seemed to fade away, as did the feeling of the coarse blankets he was sitting on. His vision started swimming, and his head, confused with all the strange signals, began to spin. He closed his eyes, hoping it would help, but his spinning in his head increased instead.

He could sense the darkness coming. Sometimes, darkness was an enemy, trapping him within. This time, though, he welcomed dark. Darkness was simple, offering him an escape from the complexities of life. Later, he would have to face life head-on, and deal with all the complicated things.

But, for now, he needed to get away.

* * *

"Letha!"

Lily called out to her friend when she saw her come back in through the portrait hole. All the windows in the tower had been fixed, the inhabitants reassured, and the remainder of the Marauders were in the Common room.

Aletha made her way over to the congregation in the corner. Lily noticed the slightly red eyes, and the forced calm outlook, but didn't comment on anything. She raised her eyebrows, however, at the disappearance of the necklace that she knew Aletha never took off. The younger girl caught Lily's questioning look, and shook her head slightly.

_'Don't ask.' All right, then, I won't._

"What happened to Danger?" Aletha asked as she joined the group. Evanie had pushed a sofa into the corner of the Common room to create a makeshift bed for Danger, who looked as if she was asleep.

"We don't know. She started screaming after you left, then dropped unconscious, and all the windows in the tower blew out."

Aletha raised her eyebrows.

"She blew out all the windows in Gryffindor tower?"

"Believe it or not," James replied, "yes, she did. And then we had to convince everyone that it wasn't anything to worry about, and then repair all the windows."

"We said that it was just someone practicing their wandwork, who got frustrated and lost control of the spell," Peter put in. "They're all staying upstairs in their dorms to tidy up, until we say they can come downstairs."

Letha nodded slightly as she took in all the information.

"I've done a few tests on her," Lily said, "And I couldn't see anything wrong. All I can tell is that she's in a deep sleep, so do you want to see if you can get anything? You're the one more serious about Healing, after all."

Smiling slightly at her friend, Aletha got out her wand and moved closer to the unmoving Danger. She cast a diagnostic spell, which Lily recognised as the one Madame Pomfrey would most likely use. It was slightly more complex than the basic one Lily had used, and gave a better idea of a person's health.

Aletha blinked, then removed the spell and tried again. Lily watched as her face moved from confusion to shock and surprise. She recast the spell a third time, and her expression settled on amazed.

"Well?" Evanie asked as Letha moved to the nearest armchair and sank down on it.

After a few moments of silence, the dark girl looked up at Lily. "Which diagnostic spell did you use?"

"The most basic one."

Letha nodded. "Thought so." She lapsed back into thinking.

After a few more moments of silence, James fidgeted a bit. "Are you going to share with us what's going on?" he asked testily.

Aletha looked at him, as though surprised to see him there. She seemed to shake off her trance-like train of thought, and got up.

"The diagnostic spell that I used is more complex than Lily's. It shows not only the health of a person's mind and body, but also things like their soul, magical core, et cetera."

"What's that?" Peter asked.

"The soul is what makes you who you are…"

"I knew _that._"

"The magical core is very closely related to the soul," Aletha continued, ignoring Peter's indignant comment. "Since magic is so central to a person's being. They're not exactly the same, but they're closely related. Now, Danger's soul is almost unusually healthy, because she cares so much about her friends. It's recently taken a heavy blow, and I think that it may have gone inwards and affected her magic."

Aletha paused, as though wondering how to phrase her next observation. "The magical core of a person shows how powerful they are, magically. Generally, Muggles would register as nothing, because they have no magic. Young witches or wizards would have a small magical core, equivalent to around ten percent of their eventual power, because it hasn't been refined yet. Magic starts to grow and refine during puberty, along with the changes to the body. On average, people reach the fullest extent of their magical core at around seventeen or eighteen."

She paused again, visibly collecting her thoughts. "The diagnostic spell doesn't give numbers, exactly, but it gives the caster an impression of how large and powerful someone's core is. Healers would be able to compare that impression of the core with the average boundaries of that person's age, to see if they're suffering from magical exhaustion or such."

"Makes sense," James said. "Danger's must be pretty down, after what she did to the windows."

Aletha shrugged. "Danger's core has always been quite average. A bit on the small size, perhaps, but normal. Now, after this, it's… strange. Overall, the size of her core is almost twice the size of any normal person of her age."

Lily gasped at Aletha, and she knew that James, Peter and Evanie were staring in disbelief as well.

"What got me most confused, though, was the way the magic was manifesting itself in the core. It isn't _normal_ magic at all."

Silence reigned in the Common room, only broken by the crackling of the fire, which James had re-lighted.

"So." Lily was trying to sort out the facts as she spoke. "You're saying that you think Danger, because she has such a strong love for her friends, was so shocked by what's happened that her soul turned inwards and… multiplied her magical core?"

Aletha nodded. "And if I'm reading it right, she may well have some sort of special powers after this. She certainly won't have entirely normal magic anymore."

James snorted. "Well that's not much of an over-reaction at all, is it?"

Silently, Lily agreed with James' point. It did seem like quite a big reaction, but then again she knew that Danger really did care a lot for her friends. The younger girl had very strong emotions that she couldn't control sometimes, and this was probably one of those times.

"So what do we do now?" Evanie asked.

Aletha shrugged. "The best we can do, without Madame Pomfrey, is just to let her wake up on her own. I'm not sure that even Pomfrey has seen something like this, so I think we should just let it run it's course."

"So we should just leave her, when she's screamed herself unconscious?" James' tone was just shy of incredulous.

"Well with Madame Pomfrey occupied, and nothing that I think she can do anyway, do you have a better solution?" Aletha snapped.

"Enough," Evanie intervened. "Doesn't anyone have anything else to do?"

"James, we should tidy our dorm, if we're going to take Danger up there," pointed out Peter.

James sighed. "True," he said, reluctantly.

Lily hid a smile. _Pure boy. If he had his way, he'd probably leave his room the way it would be if a crowd of hippogriffs stormed through it._

As the two boys departed, Lily turned to Aletha and Evanie. Danger was still unconscious- or maybe just asleep- on the sofa in the corner. "Good job," she remarked to Evanie, looking around. "Not many people notice this corner if they're just passing through; it was the best place to put her so she could hide."

Evanie blushed slightly. "I just looked around and decided where was best when James said 'out of sight'."

"Good choice, then," Lily said. Evanie smiled, then retreated towards the dormitory stairs.

Lily looked back towards Letha, and was a bit surprised to see her sitting back down on the armchair.

_I probably shouldn't have been, though. She's had a tough morning._

The younger girl was leaning forwards, resting her head on her hands. Lily could see her back starting to shake, and perched on one of the arms of the armchair.

"Letha?" Lily put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

Aletha Freeman started shaking even more. Within a few moments, she was crying on Lily's shoulder. Lily hugged her tight, offering her comfort and a silent reminder of their friendship.

"I just can't believe that he was so _stupid_," Letha said when her sobs were dying down. "I always knew that he could be a bit big-headed sometimes, but I never expected anything like this…" Her voice disintegrated into sobs again.

Lily sighed. _'Tough morning'? Understatement there, Evans._

Lily kept hugging her friend until she felt the tears ceasing. "I honestly don't know what to say, Letha," she said quietly. "I know how you feel about Sirius before he pulled this stunt; James was exactly the same. There's that feeling of how idiotic and immature they can be, but when you know them, you just can't _not_ love them."

Letha silently nodded her agreement.

"I can only imagine how it feels now, but do you want to try me, anyway?"

Aletha took a deep shuddering breath, then sat backwards and rubbed at her eyes slightly. "It's like you just said, really," she murmured at last. "I spent so long hating him… But, last summer, when he got his cousin to help my mum, and then was just there to support me, I realised that he could be mature, and kind."

She drew a long, shuddering breath. "It's the same with you and James, isn't it? You spent six years hating James' guts, screaming at him and getting really annoyed. But then you found out that he actually could be really mature and sweet."

Lily smiled. "Everyone thought that we were meant for each other, and it was only when I went on that Hogsmeade trip with him until I finally realised how right they were."

"Yes, they were. About all of us… " Aletha sniffed. "But you're so lucky… you get all these signs of proof that James really is mature and sensible when he wants to be, like just now. He handled everything really well, and you can see that he thinks about what to do and what will be best. That was what could have been a major crisis averted, if what you said is true."

Aletha's face contorted. It was as though she was about to break down, yet, by sheer force of will, was holding back.

"But why can't Sirius be like that?" she finally burst out angrily. "James proves that he's actually growing up, and there is a brain in his head when he needs it. But _Sirius_, no, he has to prove that he's a complete air-headed idiot who can't do _anything_ right at all, and now so many people are hurt…"

"Including you."

"Yes, _including_ me, but that's barely the point. I thought that he could be an actual person, who was getting less egotistical and more caring, but he has to go and pull a stunt like _this_ which makes me seriously doubt anything I ever thought, except from maybe at the beginning when he was such a prat… Remus has been _arrested_, and you know that he was probably the _least_ deserving to be arrested out of those four, unless you decide it's Peter… Danger has just had a massive power boost and is out for Merlin-knows-how-long, and she's going to have a hard time dealing with it… Christ, with such a huge change, she might not even be _able_ to cope…"

_Oh Merlin. She needs some calming…_

"Letha, look at me."

The ranting, which had been growing more hysterical by the second, ceased.

"You need to calm down, Aletha Freeman."

Letha cracked a wry smile. "I guess that the morning's been getting to me."

"No, really?" Lily's dry tone brought a chuckle to Aletha. "Seriously, though, you need to calm down for a bit."

"How? Go to sleep? Not exactly possible, right now, Lily…"

"Not possible _naturally_."

"You want to hit me with a Sleeping spell?"

"Just a light one. You honestly do need some time to calm down, Letha…"

"Which one will you use?"

"_Consopio. _Just enough to send you to sleep-"

"But you're hoping that once I'm asleep, I'll calm down a bit, and can sleep more naturally for a while." Letha sighed. "Fine, then, go for it… I'll have to stay down here, won't I?"

"Afraid so."

"Oh well. What's wrong with two sleeping teenage girls in the Gryffindor Common room?" Aletha asked rhetorically.

A cough from behind them signaled the fact that James had just descended from the boys' dorms.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, you idiot," Lily called without looking around. "What were you saying about _him_ being _mature_, Letha?"

"Excuse me?"

Letha grinned slightly as she curled up in the armchair. "Do your worst, Lily."

Lily rolled her eyes and got up, drawing her wand. "Remember- relax, Letha. _Consopio_." She tapped the top of Aletha's head gently with her wand. The younger girl slumped and her shoulders, previously so tense, finally started to loosen up slowly. Her face relaxed slightly, and her body unconsciously adjusted itself to a more comfortable position in the corner of the armchair.

Lily sighed as she tucked away her wand.

_She's right, what she said about James. I'm so lucky, having him showing that he can actually get his broom off the ground. I feel so bad for her… But at least it looks as if Sirius is actually sorry._

_I don't know what I'd do if it were James… Actually, I probably do. I'd scream and shout and hex him…_

_But why all the thinking, when James is standing right behind me?_

"Good idea, that," James said quietly as Lily turned towards him. "She needs to wind down slightly."

"I know," Lily replied. "That's why I put her to sleep." She could feel her composure starting to waver. "Hold me," she said shortly, and was soon enveloped in James' arms. "So much is happening, so quickly… It's as if the world is spinning around, out of control, with me stuck in the middle, and nothing going to be the same…"

"I know the feeling," James sighed. He kissed the top of her head, then broke apart from her. "But wouldn't you like a rock in this mess? A piece of solidarity in your life?" His face was alight, with an almost feverish glow. His eyes gleamed with hope and desperation, but predominantly his warm, tender love for her.

"Yes, but… James, what's going on?"

"So much is going wrong, all so fast," James said distractedly, as though he hadn't heard her speak. "It's like you said, really. The whole world, spinning out of control, with nothing going to stay the same."

Lily was getting slightly confused as to where this was going, but the sincerity she could see in James' expression convinced her to stay silent for the time being.

"I love you, Lily," he said, staring beseechingly at her. "It may have started off as a crush, and my idiotic attempts to get you to fall for me, and frankly, I was floored when you said yes to going out with me. But since then, we've started to know each other more than the Quidditch-mad prat, and the rule-abiding prefect. I know you, Lily, and I know that I love you."

Lily was taken aback at the raw, genuine emotion in James' voice. There were almost tears prickling at his eyes and she felt her own start to water slightly as well.

"I love you too, James, but I still don't see where-"

She was cut off by the sound of footsteps sounding from the corridor outside. As the portrait swung open, she caught a glimpse of black hair that would have been sleek if it hadn't been tangled and grimy from the owner being curled up on a floor of a dungeon.

Before she could say anything, James was tugging at her hand and pulling her up the staircase to the boys' dormitories. She was profoundly grateful for his actions.

_I don't want a confrontation. Not now._

* * *

Sirius climbed in through the Gryffindor portrait hole, watching James and Lily hurry up the staircase. He supposed that it was just as well- he didn't want another shouting match- but it still stabbed at his heart to be unacknowledged by his friends.

Well, not unacknowledged. Ignored, given the cold treatment… disowned.

_"I wish that you would just disappear…"_

After Aletha had stormed off, he had stood there, just staring at her necklace, which she had so carelessly tossed at him. He didn't know how long he had stood there, unmoving.

_"I don't want this any more… disappear, and take this with you…"_

Almost trance-like, he had reached up and unhooked his own necklace, letting the two of them dangle, one from each palm.

The light, which was still streaming in through the door that had been left swinging open, twinkled off the two words.

_Truth… Star… Truth… Star…_

Still trance-like, he'd moved his two hands together slightly, seeing the two chains swing towards each other. The light had twinkled merrily on both the silver chains and the words, when the arc of the swing caused them to cross paths. The chains had brushed together, and immediately the two necklaces had become entangled, intertwining with one another until they were just spinning… around… and around…

_Star, Truth, Star, Truth, Star, Truth, Star…_

The light was reflecting madly off the chains and around the dungeons, and the spinning was getting faster and faster, and the two chains were getting tighter and tighter…

Sirius had jerked, and the two necklaces had come apart, still spinning. He'd closed his right fist around the 'Star' necklace, his left around the 'Truth', and set off from the dungeons back to Gryffindor tower.

All the way along the route, his mind was spinning with what Aletha had said to him.

_"Stupid friend like you…"_

_"I really thought that you'd changed…"_

_"… such an idiotic, stupid, babbling prat…"_

_"… jump in the lake…take this with you…"_

His left hand tightened protectively.

His fist was still clenched around the necklace as he stood at the entrance of the Common room, looking around. The sound of Lily and James' footsteps had long since faded, and he was accompanied by no sound other than the crackling of the fire.

He took in the sights of the room, so familiar to him; yet he had never appreciated it. Not properly. Those were the overstuffed armchairs in which he would collapse, guffawing, whenever he came back from a prank… That was the rug on which he had sat when Aletha was explaining his Potions homework to him, one of the few times he had actually done it… Over there were the paintings that he and James had almost ruined by letting off fireworks in the vicinity… _That_ was the stretch of wall on which had hung a red and gold tapestry, embroidered with a lion, that had been completely destroyed in the same fireworks attack.

Sirius rotated around, drinking in all the sights and smells of the room that had doubled as his home for the past seven years.

The comfortable clutter of the armchairs and tables… The harmonious blend of the two, bold Gryffindor colours… The coarse but comfortable fabric of the carpets and rugs…

He was transported from the reality of an empty, soundless Common room to a memory, or an impression, of the room on a normal, daily basis. He sank deeper and deeper into those sensations and feelings…

The chatter of a hundred or so students, over the scratching of quills on parchment, and the merry crackling of the fire in the background… his sense of smell, so enhanced since he had completed his Animagus transformation, picking up the harmony and laughter of the entire House. He could smell the wisps of bravery that the Sorting Hat looked for in everyone sorted into Gryffindor. He could sense the frustration of those people still tackling their homework and the sense of triumph for those who had reached the end. Also, the more basic smells, that anyone could take note of: the smoky aroma of the fire, which was oddly settled in all the furnishings of the room…

Sirius came back to awareness to realise that he was standing in the middle of the Common room in dog form. Padfoot breathed in deeply, to take in and remember the exact scent of the main room in Gryffindor tower.

Half way through his second breath, he paused. There were some lingering scents of his friends, who had been here very recently. James' weary unhappiness, everyone's surprise, then anger… there was a massive scent of shock… who did it belong to?

He sniffed, trying to get as much as possible from the vague scents left behind in the air.

_Rather bookish… parchment, quills, ink… and a homely smell, sort of like when James' mum decides to do a bit of cooking…_

Danger, then. Sirius had catalogued all the scents of his friends, even those who weren't Animagi, so he could tell them apart later.

He took another sniff of the air.

_She still seems rather close… so where is she?_

He sniffed around in a circle, following the direction in which he could smell the strongest part of the scent. Looking up, he found himself facing a corner that he definitely would not have noticed on his own.

Sirius began trotting towards her sofa. Was she… asleep? Yes, that was what his nose was telling him.

What else was his nose telling him? He paused, uncertainly. Padfoot took a few steps forward, then turned around cautiously.

_I wasn't wrong, then._

Aletha Freeman was curled up in the armchair, sleeping peacefully.

_She looks so peaceful…_

A quick sniff confirmed that this sleep wasn't a natural one, but it was turning that way pretty quickly.

_And it makes what I wanted to do so much easier._

Transforming back into his human form, Sirius leant over Aletha and kissed her lightly on the cheek, then took out his 'Star' necklace and hooked it around her hand.

_"I don't want this any more," is what she said. She never mentioned _my_ necklace…_

He clutched her 'Truth' necklace closer to himself, looked around the Common room for the last time, and left through the portrait hole.

* * *

Lily felt James tense slightly when he noticed Sirius as well, but his face was soon smoothed over. He half pulled, half led her up the staircase to his dormitory at the top, and they burst in on Peter making the final touches of tidying up the windblown dormitory.

"Care to leave us alone for a while, Wormtail?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "You do all the tidying up after he leaves you when he's only done five minutes worth of tidying, and does he even acknowledge it? Nope."

"Okay, fine, fine. Thanks, Pete."

Lily raised her eyes to the heavens.

Peter cracked a smile. "Because you asked me so nicely, I shall leave you two lovebirds together. Just don't mess everything up again."

"We won't," Lily said frankly. "And I won't even consider what you were implying there."

Peter grinned cheekily, then ducked out of the door.

_What's the bet that he's listening outside anyway?_

James seemed to think of this as well, for he next flicked his wand at the door, no doubt casting a Silencing charm on it.

"James, what was that speech downstairs about?" Lily asked.

"Exactly what it sounded like," James replied. "Do you love me?"

"Of course I do, James…"

Suddenly, James was pulling her close and full-on snogging her. She could feel his desperation at keeping her; at keeping one part of his life. She could also feel his love, and answered with similar passion.

When they broke apart for breath, Lily closed her eyes in wonder at the emotion that had just passed between them.

_Wow._

_Just…wow._

When she opened her eyes, she got an even bigger surprise.

James was kneeling down in front of her, holding a small, dark red box in front of him. It was made of redwood, and looked traditional. A miniature abstract picture on the top was set off by the gold edging.

He flipped open the lid. Lily gasped.

Two golden bands were set side by side within the red velvet cushioning. One simple, slightly thicker band set only with a ruby in the middle and two small diamonds on either side. However, the ring that drew Lily's attention was the thinner one. It was set with small diamonds, creating a flower-like pattern, and a ruby in the middle. The colours contrasted beautifully.

Lily could feel her breath quickening.

"You said you wanted a rock in all this mess. So do I." James looked up at her, desperation, pleading, and hope mingled almost comically on his face. "Marry me, Lily."

* * *

Sirius made his way through Hogwarts in a dream-like trance. He still held the 'Truth' necklace, and he could feel the chain cutting into his palm. The word was swinging to and fro in the rhythm that he was walking in.

_The Truth and the Star._

A single tear ran down his already streaked face.

_I love you Letha… I'm so sorry._

He made his way out of the castle through the oak doors. Just before he walked on, he turned around to admire the majesty of Hogwarts castle. These old, grey stones that held so much magic. The tall windows that provided the castle with light during the daytime. Those towers, rising up above the main body of the castle… the tallest was Dumbledore's quarters; another was the place where he'd slept throughout the seven years he'd been a student there.

_Thank you, Hogwarts._

He turned his back on the castle with a sigh and walked onwards. His destination was to the right of the rising sun; a grey patch which reminded him of shimmering mirrors or misty veils.

_"I wish that you would just jump in the lake… and take this with you."_

Sirius walked southwards, towards the part of Hogwarts that had always just been a piece of scenery for him. He'd heard about it, certainly… there was the Giant Squid that was almost legend. Remus had told him once or twice that Grindylows lived in there, and he was sure that he had read about mer-people living in its depths. According to Danger, the only one of them who read _Hogwarts: A History_ for fun, there was an obscure reference to the fact that Durmstrang would use the lake as a method of transportation when their students came to Hogwarts for things like the Triwizard Tournament.

_And this is the only time I've really thought about it properly…_

_The only time that I'm actually doing as I'm told._

Sirius smiled at the irony.

_"Jump in the lake…"_

He neared the edge of the water. Up close, he could see the small pebbles and shingles at the bed of the lake. There were also some weeds and long grass poking out through the grey stones.

_"And take this with you…"_

The 'Truth' necklace dangled in front of his face. Should he hold it in his hands, or hook it around his neck, where it should belong?

He began wading into the water. The January chill bit at his feet, but he didn't care.

The necklace hung around his neck now, and he clutched the silver word with his left hand.

He was up to his waist in the water. His cold, already waterlogged clothes were dragging him down.

_I'm sorry, Remus, Severus, for how stupid I was…_

He'd waded in up to his chest. His left fist was holding the necklace up above the water line for as long as possible, while he felt the rest of his body going numb from the near freezing water.

_Letha, James, Peter… everyone… sorry for leaving you in this mess. This way, I can be gone before I make an even bigger one._

He snorted just before his head went underwater.

_Not that it can get much bigger than this…_

He was underwater. The water was pricking at his face already… he could barely move his benumbed feet to carry him deeper into the lake.

His lungs were screaming at him to breathe… but all around him was only water. The only way to get oxygen would be to resurface…

No. He was not going to do that.

Sirius Black went deeper and deeper into the lake, his speed slowing and his consciousness dimming with every step that he took.

* * *

**A/N:** ::sighs happily:: Don't you just love cliffies? Especially for the readers... :-D

Anyway, review! Praise, concrit, whatever... just review!


	4. Gold and Silver

(**Disclaimer:** Mine, mine, mine... I wish. Nope, not mine. Half belongs to Anne Walsh, and ultimately all belongs to Jo Rowling.

**Beta's Note: **Anne here, CW fans. Yuhan's in China and having problems with her Internet, so I'm posting for her. Enjoy!)

* * *

Chapter 4: Gold and Silver

James swallowed nervously, hoping it didn't show. Lily hadn't moved since he'd spoken the two most important words; she was staring at him unblinkingly in shock. After several moments of complete silence, James' knees were starting to ache from their prolonged contact with the dormitory floor. He shifted restlessly.

"Lily?"

Finally, she blinked, and her eyes slid down from his face to the box still in his hands. James could see the light sparkling off the precious stones and the metal, the reflections dancing in Lily's emerald eyes.

"James…" her throat stuck, and the sparkles in her eyes increased from their watering. She brushed at them slightly impatiently, then reached out and held James' hand under the ring box.

"James Tiberius Potter…" Was she mocking him by using his middle name in that wondrous tone of hers? "Your sense of timing is utterly impeccable."

He chuckled slightly, knowing that in normal circumstances there would be doubts about their age and experience. But then again, these circumstances were definitely _not_ normal.

_Yet absolutely none of this is 'normal' to a Muggle. Magic, werewolves… So this is abnormal even in abnormal terms._

"I know it is," he said, "but you still haven't answered me."

They gazed at each other, the understanding of all that James had been thinking about before passing between their eyes. The time that they lived in was dangerous, but the two of them could be responsible enough when needed.

_Well, Lily's responsible all the time, and playful when she needs to be… I'm just the other way around._

There were to be no questions about compatibility or any other such nonsense. War was going on in the Wizarding world, people were dying, and even friendships were falling around them. This particular friendship, however, would not fall. This relationship was to be cemented permanently.

"Yes."

At that one word, James' face split into a huge grin as he slid his right hand out from between the box and Lily's hands. Lifting the redwood ring box slightly, he turned it around so he could pick out the thinner ring from the soft red velvet cushioning.

"Thank you," he told her sincerely, gazing into her beaming face. He slid the ring onto her left ring finger, and sensed the charms on it activating. The thin golden band moulded itself to fit perfectly around Lily's finger.

"Oh James…" she breathed, staring at her left hand while the other one caressed it and examined the new adornment. The gold band, with the ruby and diamonds inset, shimmered beautifully on her elegant finger. "It's beautiful… where did you get it from?"

James didn't think that the grin stretching across his face would ever come off.

"It's a family heirloom… been in the Potter Vault for ages. I took it out during the Christmas break, and I've been carrying it around. I hadn't _fully_ been preparing to do this, but I guess I just decided to be equipped in case suddenly I wanted to." His smile became even wider, despite the fact that it had seemed to be impossible to do so earlier. "And I'm pretty damn glad that I had it this morning."

Lily grinned impishly at him. "Me too, James…me too."

James just had enough time to place the ring box onto a bedside table. Any later and it would have dropped onto the floor, when they both started discovering exactly _how_ glad the other had been.

* * *

Peter smirked to himself as he scurried through the common room in rat form.

_James should know better than to retrieve a suspicious-looking box, go out, return with Lily, send me out and cast Silencing charms on the room._

_I meant it when I told them to keep it at least marginally tidy in there._

Still chuckling inwardly, Wormtail ran across the large room, hardly taking in the scents his nose was reporting to him. If he had been focusing, he would have noticed a very familiar scent that was slightly distorted… out of character…

But he was concentrating on one scent only, and he followed that one up the girls' staircase, noticing at the last moment possible that Danger wasn't the only person asleep in the common room.

_So Danger and Letha are down here, Lily's up in our dormitory with James… I do believe that the two of us will get some free time together._

He scurried into the fifth year girls' dorm, thankful for the half-open door that allowed him to enter without attracting attention. On the right hand side, talking among themselves, were three girls sitting on the centre bed. Peter vaguely placed one of them as Amanda… Smith? Smythe? Something along those lines. Another one was Celeste White, who he remembered because of the numerous jokes about having a Black and a White in Gryffindor Tower, and the last one was…

_Selene something? Oh well. I never was good with names._

On the left side of the bedroom were two four poster beds, identical to those in the boys' dormitories. The closest one was Danger's bed, but Wormtail made his way in the shadows under that four poster and quickly scurried towards the last bed in the room, which Evanie was busy tidying up.

_Probably straightened up Danger's stuff first, knowing her._

He ran up to her pillow, making sure that he kept her between himself and her chatting roommates. He did _not_ want to discover their reaction to a rat in the dormitory. Thankfully, when she spotted him, Evanie only started slightly before recognition dawned in her eyes. She glanced around the room imperceptibly, her eyes lingering for a moment on the other door in the room. She looked back at him, still sitting obediently on her pillow, and then gestured towards that door with a slight incline of her head.

_She wants me to go in the bathroom?_

He looked between Evanie and the open door, asking for reaffirmation in his eyes. Once she'd nodded slightly, he rubbed against her hand, which had conveniently come to smooth out the pillow, then leapt off behind the headboard. Soon, keeping to the shadows, he came to the bathroom door and scurried inside.

A few seconds after he sat in the middle of the tiled bathroom floor, Wormtail heard Evanie's voice floating in through the doorway.

"Have the three of you all done with the bathroom?"

"Huh?" came the intelligent response from one of the chatterers— Peter thought it was Amanda—"I mean, yes, we're all done. Anyway," she had clearly moved back into her conversation, "You won't _believe_ the fuss that some of my aunts made over me when I was born. I mean, you'd think they hadn't ever seen a—"

The rest of the talk was blocked out when Evanie stepped into the small bathroom, closing the door behind her. The moment that the lock clicked, Peter transformed back into a human, sitting in the middle of the floor.

"So," he said, standing up. "Their window has blown up, they've had the Head Girl come to say that they can't even go downstairs yet… and all they can talk about are their families?"

Evanie giggled slightly wearily as she cast a low-level Silencing charm on the bathroom door. "Don't ask me. All I know is that when I came in, Celi was talking about how her uncle and his twin brother had managed to blow up a couple of _their_ windows somehow or the other."

"And that's how their conversation moved on to families?"

Evanie nodded.

Peter shook his head. "Girls and their logic— I'll never get the hang of it."

"I think you already have."

Peter put on his most shocked expression. "Oh Merlin! Say it cannot be so! I, a Marauder, understand girls? Oh, heaven weeps upon this day…"

Evanie snorted. "Well, James might weep, but right now I'm just thankful that heaven wasn't weeping when the windows blew. The wind was enough without rain as well."

"True enough." He paused. "Did they ask anything about Danger?"

"They asked me where I'd been, and I said that the two of us had been helping Lily to clear the common room for a favour, and Danger stayed behind. Anyway…" Evanie looked at him questioningly. "You never did say why you came over."

Peter grinned, and sat on the toilet seat in a lazy position. "James and Lily are in our dorm."

"And?"

"I think something's happening."

Evanie raised her eyebrows.

"Nothing that they shouldn't be doing… yet. At least, I don't think so." Peter grinned. "However, I did spot a small box around the right size and shape for a traditional pureblood engagement ring box lurking in James' pocket…"

"_What_ did you just say?"

"Lurking in James' pocket."

Evanie growled. "_Peter!_"

He adopted his most innocent expression. "What?"

She glared at him.

He tried glaring back.

A corner of her mouth began to twitch slightly.

Before long, the two of them were laughing maniacally in the small bathroom, thankful for the Silencing charm that Evanie had placed on the door.

"So James is proposing to Lily?" Evanie asked once she'd recovered her breath. "About time too… though not the best of situations, you have to admit."

"I know." Peter sighed, the laughter lines disappearing as he tensed and slumped slightly at the same time.

_I didn't know anyone could do that…But I'm 'special', as James and Sirius tell me…_

"What do you think about Danger, and her core?" he asked Evanie.

"Her magical core?" She shrugged slightly, frowning. "I don't really know that much about it, but what Letha said did make some sense. I read a theory about something like that a while ago— they thought that there could be magical 'latents', who are people born with magic but it never comes out. There was a complicated part of the theory, about Squibs being latents born into magical families, and Muggle-borns being the children of a latent or two." Her forehead creased. "Am I making sense?"

"I'm following. I think."

"Well, they said that if a latent experienced a severe shock, say, being in a life-threatening position or suddenly losing very close family members unexpectedly, their magic, which had always been repressed, would flare into existence. When Letha was talking about Danger's soul going inward and multiplying out her magical core, I thought of that theory."

Peter's forehead furrowed as he considered what Evanie had just told him. "But wouldn't that mean that every time any witch or wizard gets a shock, they get a power boost?"

"I took it to mean that releasing magical powers is almost 'reserved' for latents, because they have the magic, just are completely unaware of it. Because of _that_, their magic has a lot of potential and that makes them pretty vulnerable to shocks, because any slightest disturbance of their soul would crash into their magical core. But with us, our magic is already at its full potential, and shock affects us in the way it affects any normal muggle."

"So when Letha said about the magical core growing during puberty, that wasn't expanding to its full potential, but just getting honed and refined because of learning spells and magic and such?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"Speaking of magical cores, do you know what the core of a latent would show up as?"

Evanie chuckled. "I've got you really intrigued with this all, haven't I?" Peter nodded, sheepishly. "But as for your question, I haven't got a clue," she said frankly. "I suspect that it will just be a tiny bit of magic, almost small enough that it'll just show as an anomaly on magical tests if anyone cares to run one on what would seem to be a random muggle. But in that tiny bit of magic is probably a lot of potential, should it be released."

Peter nodded absently, thinking hard. He could vaguely sense Evanie looking at him questioningly.

_"Danger's core has always been rather average, if a bit low"…_

_Her parents are muggle dentists…_

_So she's a muggleborn who had a relatively small magical core, but it's suddenly increased due to a shock…_

"Evanie," Peter said slowly, "Do you think that Danger could have been a latent, but with her magic half repressed, and half unleashed?"

"I—" Evanie's breath caught, as though the idea suddenly made too much sense. "Yes…" she said slowly, her eyes widening. "Yes! I think you've got it, Peter!" Her tone became faster and more excited. "Her magic was only half unleashed, which means that there was still some potential left in there, which meant that her soul could still fiddle around with it… Yes! And so, because there isn't as much potential magic waiting to be set off, it'll take a lot less than the usual required shock to release the last of the magic… I'd say that, with her strong soul and loyalty towards her friends, this sort of incident would almost equal something completely terrible, like her parents dying, if she was just an ordinary latent and her powers got unlocked!"

"And so those 'special powers' that Letha mentioned would be because the magic Danger already had was pretty much mostly refined and matured, the extra 'wild' magic couldn't manifest itself as normal magic, so it became rather special, unusual magic?"

"Yes!" Evanie's face was beaming, and Peter could feel his own grin stretching from ear to ear. "We've figured out what happened to Danger— we _have_ to tell Letha and Lily!"

"Agreed." Peter felt the grin sliding from his face. "But we're going to have to wait—Lily's probably having the time of her life right now, and Letha's asleep in the common room. I think Lily spelled her asleep."

"How do you know?"

"Animals have a _very_ acute sense of smell."

"Ah." Evanie sighed. "Poor Letha… If for nothing else, Sirius deserves a beating for doing this to her."

"Agreed. Again." Peter sighed. "How did we get from being so happy to so gloomy in such a short period of time?"

"Beats me."

* * *

Aletha Freeman awoke with a start. Judging by the way that the rectangles of light on various parts of the common room had barely moved, she probably hadn't been asleep for long.

Taking deep breaths, she sat up slowly.

_I guess that Lily expected me to sleep for a little longer than this…_

She looked around the common room. Nothing much had changed… Danger was still there on the sofa, the fire was still burning brightly in the grate, and the furnishings and carpet still looked the slightest bit windblown.

_So why did I suddenly wake up?_

The nerves in her right hand provided her with the answer almost immediately. She discovered a long thin chain of silver metal that was burning cold, almost as though it had just come out of a freezer.

_But I gave my 'Truth' necklace back to Sirius…_

Ignoring the lurch that her heart gave when she thought of his name, she instead lifted the chain up.

Letha frowned when she saw that she was holding the 'Star' necklace. And it was still burning cold, even the part that she had clutched in her hand.

_Something's not right._

* * *

Lily and James had cooled off a bit, and were now back to cuddling on James' bed. Lily was leaning back on James, and his left hand, which was curled around Lily's waist, now sported the second ring in the box on his fourth finger.

Lily sighed blissfully.

"Is it legal to be this happy?" she asked, feeling the gentle repetitive thump of James' heart on her back.

"If it's illegal, then we have yet more proof that the law is complete and utter rubbish," he replied.

Lily's breath quickened slightly as she caught the tone of slight bitterness in his voice.

_Please don't think about that… this is _our_ perfect moment, and I don't want it ruined…_

James probably sensed the slight tensing of her muscles, and quickly moved on.

"So, how do you think your parents are going to react?" he asked.

Lily chuckled. "A lot better than they reacted to Petunia's marriage, most likely. They don't know you that well, but Merlin knows I've written enough letters home about you."

"I didn't know that you write home to your parents about me."

"Sure you didn't. And you've got no clue about what the first six years' worth of letters were like."

"Oh, let me think… something along the lines of 'He's such a big-headed prat?'"

"Something along those lines, yes."

"How'd they react when your letters changed all of a sudden?"

Lily smiled slightly. "Apparently, Dad burst out laughing and started yelling that he _knew_ that it was only a matter of time before I realised—"

"How perfect we are together."

"Yeah." Lily snuggled down further into James' arms. "What about your parents? How are they going to react?"

She felt him snort slightly. "We're not completely traditional purebloods, but my parents still like the idea of getting married early. They practically encouraged me to get the rings ready last holidays."

Lily smiled smugly. "Well, you already know how glad I am that you had it today…"

James grinned. "I know."

Their small conversation ended as they returned to previous activities.

* * *

"We're going to have to go soon," Evanie said regretfully. "They're going to get really suspicious if I spend too long in the bathroom."

"Point," said Peter, moving away. Evanie caught a small glint of light at his neck, and reached out to touch it gently.

"What's this?" she asked, feeling what seemed to be a metal chain.

"What?" Peter looked down at where she was indicating. "Oh, that…" He pulled the chain out of his robes. Evanie immediately noticed a gold ring dangling from the chain. "The ring was my dad's wedding ring. When he died, mum gave it to me." He looked at the ring with an odd expression on his face. "I didn't even know him that well…" He shrugged noncommittally, but not before Evanie caught the small flash of pain in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"No matter." He shrugged again.

"I've got a bracelet that my mum gave me," Evanie told him, trying to lighten up the conversation. "It was my grandma's— I really like it. It's not too gaudy, but it's pretty. I'll have to show it to you some day."

"I'd like that." Peter smiled at her.

* * *

Aletha stared around the empty dungeon, her eyes frantically flitting from corner to corner of the dark room without noticing how out of breath she was.

_He's not here… Oh Merlin, where is he? Where on earth did he go?_

The last time she came down here, she had made it pretty fast by storming down the stairs. This time, she had made it even faster by sprinting from Gryffindor Tower down to the dungeons. She didn't even know why she was so panicked— only that she could sense that there was something _really_ wrong with Sirius right now. So, instead of running to the dungeons to scream at him, she had flown down, panicked, to try and see what was wrong with him.

_But how can I help him if I don't even know where he _is?

Aletha didn't even think about the fact that barely half an hour ago, helping Sirius Black would have been the last thing on her mind. But it seemed as though an external, almost spiritual force was driving her on.

_Go back to Gryffindor Tower! Get help!_

But who in the tower could help her right now? It wasn't as if anyone could try to locate him within two minutes…

_For heaven's sake, Letha, _think_! Who in Gryffindor Tower can help you right now?_

Could someone just wave their wand and _know_ where he had been—

Letha smacked herself on the head.

_Of course! James, or Peter! They're Animagi— they can scent Sirius out!_

Quicker than a flash, she darted out of the dungeon and was tearing across the corridor, almost flying up the steps and in the entrance hall before she knew it. Without breaking stride, she raced up the marble staircase and thanked whatever deity was listening for the endless Quidditch practices and matches that she had gone through, keeping her in good shape.

_I don't even know what he's done this time, only that he needs help…_

Blurred portraits and suits of armour went whizzing by behind her.

_He's in trouble. I haven't the faintest idea of how I know, but I need to get there _now_…_

She sprinted up a flight of steps, tossing a silent word of gratitude to the deity that the stairs were co-operating and not being a nuisance.

_Just hang in there, wherever you are…_

In her hand was still clutched the 'Star' necklace, which she hadn't let go of ever since she had woken up with it mysteriously in her hand.

_Wait— that must mean that Sirius came into the common room and put it there while I was asleep! It can't have been that long ago— his scent's probably still all over the place!_

She increased her pace.

Her dressing gown had become loose somewhere across the way, and the two ends of the waist tie were streaming along behind her, moving up and down in accordance to her strides.

_Why is this castle so damned _big_…_

She reached the fourth floor, and hurtled towards the next staircase.

_I'm pretty lucky that it's still rather early. Too early for most people to be up, and the few teachers that are awake are probably dealing with various Snape or Lupin business…_

The waist straps of her dressing gown were almost jumping up and down behind her, giving her the feeling of wings beating to keep her flying through the caste.

Soon, but not soon enough for Aletha, she turned into the corridor leading to Gryffindor Tower. Skidding to a halt before the Fat Lady, she spat out the password and dove inside without even noticing the eyebrows raised at her from the canvas.

The common room was exactly the same as she'd left it.

_Well, obviously, since you didn't even leave for that long…_

Biting back a growl of frustration, Letha punched back the sarcastic voice in her head.

_This is NOT the time!_

Looking around desperately, she tried to think of a plan. Unfortunately, though, with the sarcastic voice in her head shoved out of the way, it seemed as though all the others had gone with it as well.

Vaguely, she noticed Danger still asleep in the corner, with the sofa where she had been sleeping beside it. On the small table next to it was her wand, which she had put there before Lily cast the sleeping spell on her.

_My wand… How on earth did I forget my wand?_

However, before she could fetch it, she heard slight footsteps coming down from the girls' staircase, and duly bolted towards them. Running up the steps two at a time, she turned a corner and almost crashed into a now fully dressed Evanie.

"Letha! I thought Lily'd put you to sleep—"

"Have you seen Peter or James?" Aletha interrupted, not listening to a word Evanie had said.

A rat climbed onto Evanie's shoulder. "James is in the boys' dorm with Lily, and Peter's here… you know there are alarms on the girls' staircases, right?" Evanie frowned. "Letha, what's wrong?"

"There's something wrong with Sirius!" Aletha didn't know how loudly she'd spoken until Evanie grabbed her by the shoulder and started tugging her down the stairs. She lowered her voice slightly as they carried on down, making sure that girl and rat were both listening to what she was saying. "I don't know how, or where, or why, but I do know that he's in some sort of life-threatening situation, and he needs some help right now!" As soon as they re-entered the common room, Wormtail jumped down to the floor and started sniffing around. Aletha carried on explaining to Evanie. "I got woken up because the necklace suddenly got really cold, but I'd—" she paused, "—given my 'Truth' necklace back to Sirius, and the necklace I have is the 'Star' one, which means that Sirius must have come in here some time when I was asleep and put it in my hand…"

Wormtail was looking rather alarmed by now, for a rat, and had clawed his way up to Aletha's hand that was enveloping the silver necklace, wordlessly asking for permission to have a smell at the scents that Sirius must have left on there. She opened her fingers to allow the silver 'Star' to show through, and the rat poked his nose at it, sniffing the word and the chain around it.

His beady rat eyes grew big, and he hastily turned around and jumped off Aletha's arm. When he landed, he was human again on all fours. Looking very shaken, he twisted slightly and sat down heavily.

"Shit," he whispered, looking so disturbed that it was no wonder he had lost control of his Animagus form. "He's suicidal." Peter looked up at the two girls. "He's bloody suicidal!"

Letha felt the blood draining from her face. "Oh my…" Her breath and heartbeat started quickening. Her two hands went up to cover her mouth, and she spoke barely loud enough for Peter and Evanie to hear her. "I told him to… to go jump in- in- in the lake…"

Peter swore, raising his eyes to the heavens. "Sirius, you bloody _idiot_…"

And he was out of the portrait hole, Aletha barely two steps behind him and Evanie barely two steps behind _her_.

"How could you tell?" Letha asked Peter as she ran through the castle yet again.

"Animals can sense emotions," he replied shortly, then took a sharp right turning, brushing aside a tapestry and charging down the staircase behind it. Aletha followed, and when they came out she noticed that it had taken them down at least three floors.

"Letha?" Evanie called from slightly behind her, sounding a bit out of breath. "What… _exactly_… did you say to him?"

Aletha angrily shoved down a sob, thankful that running was making her breath come out in short bursts anyway. "I… said to… get out of our lives… and go jump in the lake… or something…"

The castle had never seemed as big as it was while the three of them were running through it. Aletha felt as if every gap between her feet hitting the floor lasted years. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity but could only have been a few minutes, they were clattering down the marble staircase and into the Entrance hall.

The big oak doors were swinging open.

Peter turned rat for a few seconds, then back to human.

"He was definitely here," he told them, his voice a mixture of anger, exasperation and worry. "And I'm pretty sure that he still had the same thing on his mind."

With a frantic cry, Aletha bolted out of the open doors. She ignored the birds singing in the forest, and the dewdrops on the flowers, focussing only on the grey patch of the grounds that was the lake.

_It looks so calm, and serene…_

How deceiving.

A large grey rat ran out in front of her, its nose stuck to the ground.

_Is he following Sirius' scent?_

The rat turned slightly left to where she had been heading.

_That's a yes, then._

Her eyes caught sight of the large beech tree which the Marauders seemed to like so much.

_Oh god, the Marauders…they've already practically lost one of their members—their brothers—and I'll be damned if I let them lose another one!_

_But… if I don't get there in time…_

Aletha violently punched back the wavering, uncertain voice in her mind.

_I'll get there, make sure he's alive, kiss him until we nearly pass out, then kick his sorry backside into next year._

_And he _will_ be sorry, all right._

Wormtail was at the water's edge, scurrying left and right across a small stretch of the bank. He transformed back just as Aletha caught up with him, panting and subconsciously clutching a stitch in her side.

"He went in here," Peter said shortly, his eyes betraying his worry. "And it's been between five and ten minutes."

Aletha growled under her breath in frustration once more, then waited only to take a deep breath before she shed her dressing gown and ran into the water. Vaguely did she hear Peter and Evanie's shouts of surprise, but the moment she was deep enough she flung herself forwards into the cold January water.

All sound from outside—Peter and Evanie's shouts, the birdsong coming from the forest—immediately ceased. The water was pressing into her eyes, causing her vision to blur and her eyes to sting. Her pyjamas were becoming waterlogged and heavy, weighing her down…

Wincing as a small grain of sand floated into her left eye, Letha finally remembered her wand—which was still upstairs, lying on the small table next to the sofa she went to sleep on.

Really_ helpful, right now…_

Of course, now that she had thought of her wand, all the discomfitures that could have been eased with magic were now emphasized. She could feel the water pressing in around her face, and her pyjamas sticking to her skin in a distinctly uncomfortable feeling, and her heart pounding rapidly in her ribcage, and her lungs, burning and screaming for air…

A sharp kick of the shingles sent Aletha flying upwards, allowing her to break the surface and gasp for oxygen.

Life exploded into her senses: Peter and Evanie talking loudly by the lake edge, not having noticed her; the wind blew past her face, making her shiver; the sun, just rising, flashing into her eyes…

She took another deep breath, expanding her chest, and dove back down again into the water. She tried to clear her vision in vain by blinking a few times, and looked around frantically for the second time in half an hour. Being restricted to blurry vision within five feet was not helping.

_Where IS he, damn it!_

Her legs were protesting, having run so far and then propelling her so fast into the lake. She could see absolutely _nothing_ helpful— only the grayish green water around her and the pebbles beneath. Her lungs were starting to send signals at her again just as she spotted a dark object ahead, floating slightly above the lake bed.

_Oh God, please let it be him…_

Asking her lungs for just a little more time, she kicked her quickly wearying legs behind her and swam towards the dark object.

_Let it be him, please,_ she prayed as she swam.

Before she even reached it, she knew something wasn't right. The object was the wrong shape and the wrong colour to be a human being, but she kept swimming anyway. Just in case…

_It's a log._

A hollow log, floating just above the bed. When she approached it, she caused the water currents around the log to turn it around and sink slightly.

Her lungs burning from lack of oxygen, her heart filled with disappointment and terror, Letha shot skywards again.

Her senses were once more assaulted by the sudden change, and she noticed that she was much further away from land than last time.

_I didn't swim that fast, did I?_

Taking several deep breaths, she saw that Evanie was standing alone by the lake edge. Bending over her knees and catching her breath, she was watching a small grey streak heading towards the castle. Her back was turned to Aletha, who took one last deep breath and dove down, again before anyone could see her.

She went down at an angle this time, instead of straight down like last time. By now, even her arms were reacting sluggishly, and she knew that she was losing energy.

_This is Not Good._

_Let me find him now, _she desperately begged the deity who was hopefully still listening. _I just want to find him, kiss him and hit him, and mark all this as the worst part of the worst day of my life so far…_

She closed her eyes, still swimming, to let a tear ease out between her eyelids and mingle with the surrounding lake water.

_Just don't let this day get any worse that it can possible be…_

She opened her eyes.

She blinked a few times.

She was looking into the face of an incredibly pale and beaten up Sirius Black.

* * *

Danger looked around in confusion. Where was this place? Once she had heard that poem—which, she found, she could recite off by heart already—the voice had simply faded away and she left in this… greyness. Which was all that it was: grey.

_So… this just leaves the question of what in the name of heavenly Merlin is going on, and how in the name of heavenly Merlin I got here…_

What was the last thing she remembered?

_Dreaming of transforming into a wolf and playing with wolf-Remus under the full moon…_

Remus. The name struck a chord in her memory, like it was trying to remind her of something. But what?

_Okay. Associations… _

_Remus. The Marauders. Peter. James. Sirius._

Peter…

_Oh. He woke me up this morning… he must have woken Evanie up after I went out, because she came down with him afterwards…_

James…

_That conversation in the common room… he said that they were all, excepting Remus, Animagi—which I already knew…_

Sirius…

_Oh Merlin… he betrayed Remus! He told Severus how to get into the tunnel… if only we'd finished the Animagus spells earlier!_

Remus…

_He's at the Ministry, isn't he…Oh my Lord, this is all a bloody _mess_. I wonder if he knows everything yet? Either way, I wish I could be with him right now…_

As if her thought had been a trigger, the surrounding greyness changed. Subtly, imperceptibly, but it changed.

_Wait—is this a dream?_

She stamped her foot down, and was rewarded with the ground yielding slightly, like taut fabric.

She smiled.

_Well, this simplifies things, doesn't it?_

Quickly and efficiently, she modified her surroundings into something more colourful and friendly. Then she blinked in surprise.

_A beach? I guess my subconscious is after the sun right now…_

She had a feeling that if she'd tried to do that earlier, to the first greyness, she wouldn't have succeeded.

In fact, she realized as she settled down onto the sand, she had a lot of feelings right now. Little flutterings nagging at her brain. Such as the one telling her that something was about to happen…

Right about…

Now.

A huge wave rolled up from the sea, almost drowning her and pulling her down into its depths. Only a hastily thought up thick rope, attached to a tree and clung to with both hands, prevented her from being swept away from the beach. Because she had been looking out at the sea, the wave caught her right in the face. Of course, once she'd turned around and still managed to keep hold of the rope, the wave was turning around and she caught the backwash right in the face. Once the water had receded, she peeled her soaking hair away from her face and spat out a mouthful of salty seawater.

_When I thought that something was going to happen, I did NOT expect that!_

A click of her fingers dried herself. A second click Vanished the rope. A third removed all other traces of the mini tidal wave.

_Well, THAT was exciting._

Before she settled back down onto the sand, her ears caught the sound of a small groan a few metres to her right.

_Now, what is that…_

Instead of walking towards the source of the groan, which she now saw to be a black shape on the sand, she grinned to herself and snapped her fingers a fourth time. In her place now stood a tan wolf.

_It won't be long until I can do that in reality now…_

Smiling inwardly, wolf-Danger bent her head down and started sniffing her way to the mysterious person.

Her human mind picked up the thought that this person was a separate, real individual, who was somehow, for some reason, sharing her dream.

_But that's never happened before, ever…_

The wolf shrugged.

The mysterious black object came closer, and the wolf could now see brown hair on the top of a head facing away from her. Even from this distance, her nose could smell the salt and water in his clothes and hair which strongly suggested that he'd been hit by the tidal wave.

_And considering he wasn't here before, the conclusion is the he was swept in by the wave._

The wolf shrugged again, still sniffing its way closer. She was now in scenting range.

_Familiar… very familiar… know him. Know him well. Friend, Pack, mate…_

Danger stopped short.

_Mate? Did I really just think that?_

_So that must mean…_

She came up to the person lying on the sand, and used her nose to nudge his head over to face her.

Sure enough, she was looking into the face of Remus Lupin.

_This is… interesting._

He groaned again, while Danger the wolf was still examining him curiously.

It was right about when Remus' eyes began to flicker that her human side started sending warning signals to the wolf, but the animal shrugged them off.

Remus opened his eyes slowly.

His eyes inevitably fell on the wolf looking at him quizzically.

He blinked a few times.

The warning vibes were getting increasingly frequent.

The wolf waved them off again.

Remus yelped and flung himself away.

The sudden loud noise assaulted Danger's sensitive wolf ears and caused her to spring backwards herself and transform on the way.

_Because landing flat on my back in the sand is _so_ dignified…_

"Easy," she groaned, sitting up and rubbing her ears. "It's only me."

Remus was standing a few feet away, one hand on his chest and the other trying to simultaneously brush his wet hair out of his face and rub the sand off of his head. The clothes he was wearing were completely drenched and sticking to his body. His eyes were as round as galleons. "I didn't know you were an animagus," he finally said.

"I'm not." She grinned cheekily at him. "Yet."

His hands moved on to try and brush the sand off of his waterlogged clothes. "But—the wolf…"

"Let me help you with that," Danger interrupted. Before Remus could ask, she clicked her fingers a fifth time and he was completely dry and sand free.

"What—how…?" Remus' eyes went even wider as he looked down at his clothes, hands feeling through his dry hair to check for sand grains. "Is this real?" he asked her at last, looking around the beach.

"As real as you are," Danger replied chirpily, grinning and lounging back on the sand.

Remus shot her a glare. "Not very helpful right now."

"Why not?" she asked him innocently. "Other than the fact that you just got swept in by a tidal wave and I managed to dry you with a click of my fingers?"

"I got swept in by a tidal wave?"

"Empty beach. Nobody except yours truly. Sudden tidal wave. Extra person lying on the sand. Point, evidence, analysis, you got swept in by a tidal wave."

Remus stared. "Right."

"So…" Danger felt the playfulness ebb away from her. "How are you doing?"

He snorted. "Just bloody great. Last thing I remember is being told, in a RCMC holding cell, that last night, I'd—" He broke off, looking suddenly afraid and worried.

"Don't worry," Danger reassured him, "I know about your fluffy little problem."

Remus raised an eyebrow, then groaned. "It's been broadcast everywhere, hasn't it?"

"No!" Danger said quickly, then she paused. "At least, not that I know of."

Remus winced. "So… how _do_ you know?"

"_I've_ known for ages," Danger said, subconsciously moving her hand to touch the little lump in her robes that she knew would be there. "But everyone else found out this morning, when James told us…"

"_James_ told _everyone_?" Remus looked a cross between alarmed and ready to throttle every best friend he had.

"No! Just Letha, Lily, Evanie and me."

Remus groaned again and buried his face in his hands. Then he sighed, took his hands away and lay back on the sand, the very image of defeated. "Why am I even worrying? The whole world will know pretty soon anyway…"

Danger sighed, the very last of her playfulness disappearing.

"Look," she said, turning the small patch that Remus was lying on into a stone paving slab. "Stamp on that."

Remus raised an eyebrow at her again. "I didn't know your transfiguration skills were so good."

"They're not. Stamp."

"Yes ma'am." Remus sighed and rolled his eyes, standing up. A hard stamp of his left foot caused the hard stone beneath him to yield slightly. He looked at her questioningly. "Am I supposed to understand what this means?"

"It's a dream," Danger clarified, returning the slab back to sand. "I've always been able to control my dreams—I thought everyone could do it, but my mum told me that it was a special talent passed down on her side of the family. So I've been sculpting my dreams my whole life, and I know the difference between my dreams and reality to be the soft ground, and that I can actually control the former."

Remus sighed, settling back down onto the newly returned sand. "Must be nice to control reality."

"Seconded. But I have never, _ever_, shared a dream with anyone before. Because this is a shared dream, and I have absolutely no idea in hell what's going on."

"That makes two of us. And I don't even know what's going on outside dreams." Remus then took a deep breath, sat up, and looked at her. "So, other than the fact that I seem to have invaded it by being swept in by a tidal wave, how has this dream been different from any other?"

"Funny you should mention that, actually…" And she told him about the strange whirlwind of colours and sounds, then the poem, and the greyness…

"A poem?" Remus enquired. "What was it like?"

"Like I said, all I saw was grey."

"What about the voice you mentioned? Male, female, old, young?"

"Male, and relatively young, I'd say. Twenties or thirties."

"And what about the poem? Can you remember it?"

"I think so…" Danger thought for a bit. "Yes, definitely."

Remus looked at her. "You can remember it, word for word?"

"Yes."

"But you only heard it once…"

"I know. But it's literally drumming through my head and won't ease up…"

He looked bemused. "Okay, let's hear it then."

Danger took a deep breath.

"_Though virtue is its own reward,  
Your loyal love's a two-edged sword.  
It brings you pain, and wild might,  
Which helps you end the wolfish night…"_

Remus, who'd been trying to keep up, interrupted her. "Wait. Can you either slow down or write it for me to see?"

"Can't you remember it?" she teased.

"Nope. How long _is_ this poem?"

Danger considered. "Around… fifteen to twenty lines. I can't tell exactly without seeing it in front of me."

"Okay…" Remus raised his eyebrows. "Write it down then."

Danger clicked her fingers once more, and bent over the paper that appeared. Picking up the quill, she began to write without even needing to use ink.

_Though fool he was, and fool still be,  
The darkest star deserves his plea.  
Forgive, move past, but do not let  
Yourselves or him the truth forget._

While she was writing out the words that her mind was dictating to her, she sensed Remus getting up from his patch of sand a few feet away and coming up behind her.

_These four: yourself and mentioned three,  
Must speak the words to set you free.  
To bind you, with a solemn oath,  
To those who now have plighted troth  
And scurrier and scarréd maid,  
For only thus will you gain great aid._

Neither of them noticed his hand coming up to rest on her shoulder while reading what she was writing.

_The royal stars will help you hide  
The strength to words that you supplied.  
And so this tangle, tightly spun,  
Ends better than it had begun._

Once she had finished, she blew the ink dry and read over what she had written.

"Eighteen lines… all correct," she confirmed, sensing Remus standing behind her, his eyes skimming over the lines of her semi-tidy scrawl.

"This looks like a prophecy to me," he said at last. "The referrings to people we know, addressing you specifically, and various statements which seem to be telling us what to do…"

There was a silence as they both regarded the lines written on the parchment. Eventually, Danger sighed."Well, let's get to figuring out what this iambic tetrameter guy in my head is trying to tell us, shall we?"

Chuckling, the pair bent over their work.

* * *

James couldn't remember feeling so happy in a long time.

_In fact, considering I didn't feel as happy as this even when we pranked all of the Slytherins' hair and clothes to flash red and gold…_

_Yes, I'd say this is the happiest I've ever felt._

The source of his happiness was the gorgeous redhead leaning back on him and, of course, the ring he was wearing on his left ring finger as well as the one he could see on Lily's.

He sighed happily for the thirty-eighth time in five minutes.

_I didn't know I was counting._

He felt his sigh echoed from Lily. He could almost feel the happiness emanating off her as well.

"Are we going to go public with this information, or shall we wait a bit?" he asked her.

"Wait," Lily said immediately. "It's already been a roller-coaster of a day enough; we don't need to make it even more by telling everyone else."

"True." James paused, savouring the last few moments of this paradise. "We should go down," he said reluctantly. "They'll be wondering what on earth is going on by now."

"You're right." James could hear the same reluctance in Lily's voice. "I should check up on Danger as well."

They stayed sitting for a little while longer each unwilling to stand up. Finally, Lily moved away, her face saying 'might as well'.

"Must we?" James' voice had now moved from reluctant to downright whiny. When Lily fixed him with a glare, he gave another sigh, this time of unwillingness, then uncurled his legs and slid off the bed.

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Lily asked him teasingly. James rolled his eyes at her, then leaned down slightly and gave her a peck on the cheek.

"Let's go down, then, shall we?" He turned around, grabbing her left hand with his, and started tugging her towards the door.

Lily laughed at him, and walked forwards a few steps before she stopped, frowning down at their clasped hands.

"What?" James followed her gaze, and saw his ring pressing into Lily's hand. Her eyes shifted to her own ring, and she reached for her wand.

"If we're not telling our friends about this," she said, pulling her wand out, "we don't need them to see these. Hold out your hand."

_Oh, right._

He held out his left hand just as Lily tapped her own ring, silently disillusioning it. She moved on to his, and his ring seemed to vanish; only feeling it pressing down into his skin convinced him it was still there.

"Ah well. At least the rings have temporary sticking spells on them, or they might fall off without us realizing it."

"Helpful," Lily agreed. "Come on."

Hand in hand, they walked through the door and down the stairs.

When they emerged in the common room, Lily headed immediately for the corner where Danger and Letha were sleeping. James followed her.

"Odd," Lily frowned when she reached the sofas. "Letha's not here."

James caught up with her. "Very odd. Well, you did use the weakest possible sleeping spell— with good reason— so maybe it wasn't enough and she woke up, then went for a walk."

Lily leaned across the sofa and reached onto the small table. She held up a wooden stick, around a foot long. "Without her wand?"

"Ah." James frowned. "Well, in that case, I've got no idea."

Lily shrugged, pocketing the wand. "She probably did just go for a walk, either deciding that she wouldn't need her wand—" James snorted, "—or forgetting it. And don't snort again; she's not exactly in the best of moods or in the most organized frame of mind."

James sighed. "Fine, fine… and didn't you want to check up on Danger?"

"Thanks for reminding me." Lily eased herself between the sofas until she was next to Danger. "I wish I could do that spell that Letha used— it sounds really interesting."

James rolled his eyes. "Always the mini academic, aren't you?"

"Yup. And that's why you love me." Lily grinned at him.

James laughed. "Hurry up and check up on Danger already."

Lily, still smiling to herself, turned to the sleeping girl and cast the basic diagnostic spell.

"Any change?" James asked.

"Yes." Lily removed the spell. "Very slight— she's not sleeping as deeply any more. I'd say that she's dreaming normally by now."

Before James could say anything, a large bang from behind them caused them to wheel around and see Peter bursting into the room. Not noticing the highly affronted expression of the Fat Lady, he charged right over to the two of them, looking very out of breath.

"Wormtail—what—?"

"Lily—James—you've got to come—Letha and Sirius—down by the lake—"

"The _lake_? What in the name of Merlin are they doing down by the lake?" Lily asked.

Peter, instead of answering, shook his head, breathing deeply, and gestured for them to follow him.

James looked at Lily, silently asking for her opinion. She shrugged, and started walking after Peter.

_What the hell. Might as well._

He started following Peter as well, and as soon as they were out of the portrait hole Peter broke into a run. The newly betrothed pair found themselves jogging, then running, then sprinting to keep up with their leader.

"Peter, _what_ is going on?" Lily shouted after him.

"Just come on!" Peter flung back at them. "Get there as quickly as possible!"

James and Lily exchanged mystified looks, and continued tearing through the corridors.

When they exited the castle through the huge oak doors, they were all getting out of breath. James couldn't help but notice the dew on the grass—he himself was fine, wearing his shoes, but Lily was only wearing her dressing gown and slippers.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, motioning towards her slippers that were quickly getting wet.

Lily smiled at him. "I'm fine."

James cast a drying charm on her slippers anyway.

"Will you two lovebirds please pay attention?" Peter yelled back at them.

"Pay attention to what?" James shouted.

Wordlessly, Peter pointed forwards, at the lake. More specifically, at a small part of the bank, where Evanie was standing, and…

_What on earth?_

A little way into the lake, a tall black person was making her way towards land, her movements as hasty as possible with her pyjamas obviously drenched and her limbs weary. But James' eyes were drawn to what was trailing behind her: a bundle of black robes, and the person wearing them…

_He's not breathing…_

"Oh my…" James heard himself speaking aloud.

The swimmer reached shallow depths, and she stood up, dragging the second person behind her. They reached the bank just as Peter did, with James and Lily not far behind.

"Letha!" Lily exclaimed as the black girl all but collapsed onto the grass. "What happened?"

James was watching the other person.

_He's far too pale…_

"Stupid… bloody… idiot… tried to kill himself…" The tone of her voice, though tired, still left no doubt as to _which_ stupid bloody idiot she was talking about.

_Kill himself…Holy Merlin…_

James started swearing in the privacy of his mind, standing stock still and staring blankly at his pale best friend. Lily dropped to her knees beside the soaking wet Sirius Black, first drying his clothes and then casting the diagnostic spell yet again. She growled, then flipped him over and draped Sirius over her knee. She started thumping him on the back, with a face that seemed to cast doubt on whether she was thumping him to get the water out of his lungs, or hitting him as hard as she physically could for being so idiotic.

Thump… thump…

James was still staring blankly at Sirius' pale face, reverberating with each thump of Lily's.

_Did he really just attempt suicide?_

Thump… thump…

Aletha was struggling to sit up, a few feet away from Lily and Sirius. Evanie and Peter moved to either side of her, helping her up. Evanie pulled out her wand and cast a heat spell, causing Aletha to look up at her in gratitude.

Thump… thump…

James' mind, previously numbed, started processing thoughts and feelings once more. Worry was predominant over disbelief and anger… What if they were too late?

Thump… thump…

Aletha, now dry, seemed to be getting the same idea and panic clouded her features. Forgetting her tiredness, she clambered over to her two friends and helped Lily beat at Sirius' back.

THUMP… Thump…

James fell to his knees, shuffling his way towards his unconscious best friend.

"Sirius…"

Abruptly, the thumps stopped as Aletha threw aside Lily's hands and flipped Sirius over onto the ground. She used one hand to cover his nose, and placed the other one on his chin, lowering her head down to meet his.

"Don't give up on me now," she growled into his face, before attaching her lips to his.

_Is she kissing him?_

Lily was kneeling next to them, massaging her knuckles, looking on anxiously. When she noticed James' raised eyebrows, she mouthed something at him.

_She's… breathing for him?_ James shrugged. _Muggle thing, I guess._

All four pairs of eyes around the water edge returned to regard the last two of their group nervously. James didn't know how long had passed, until—finally—a long, hacking cough raked Sirius' body and Letha sat up, looking ecstatic but even more fatigued.

The group watching them all heaved a huge breath. James saw the massive smiles on relief on Lily, Evanie and Peter's faces, and knew that his own must be similar. Lily took a long stick out of her pocket and handed it over to Aletha, who murmured a word of thanks. She leaned over Sirius and ran her wand first across his black eye, then the large bruise forming across his left cheek, smiling in satisfaction as they faded.

Sirius, still coughing, turned onto his side and started spewing out water, coughing and choking in hacking breaths. Letha rubbed his back as James started crawling towards him again.

"Sirius Black Copyrighted Really Dumb Idea number two within twelve hours." James rolled his eyes as he reached Sirius, who expelled the last of the water from his lungs and lay back, exhausted. His eyes were closed and he was breathing shallowly, but he was breathing. "You are the most stupid, reckless, air-headed idiot I have had the misfortune to call my best friend." James paused, sitting down on the ground and stretching his legs in front of him. "Then again, you're the only stupid, reckless, air-headed idiot of a best friend I have."

And he snatched Sirius up into a hug, never wanting to let go.

* * *

(And thus the cliffie is resolved. But we still have problems. Then again, what fun would a story be without problems?

Please review! Concrit, praise, and bewilderment all accepted!)


	5. Recovery and Discovery

**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter belongs to J.K.Rowling. Dangerverse belongs to Anne Walsh. I own nowt but my muse, who tries to make that a lie at every possible oppurtunity. Any questions?

* * *

Chapter 5: Recovery and Discovery

The dark haired, blue robed woman looked up at the other person with her. "You're having far too much fun with this."

The man, with black hair and green robes, looked up at her, affronted. "Fun? No, I'm feeling the pain and worry of all the people down there."

The woman rolled her eyes. "I knew I shouldn't have pulled you away from that new addition to your life. You're so relieved about being released from the main duty that it's affecting your work."

"What? I'm just fiddling around with peoples' thoughts, adding in a coincidence or two, making the timing come out the way I want it and messing with the proper way of things. You know, the normal."

She rolled her eyes again. "Yes, the normal." She paused. "I think I've gotten so used to you being otherwise busy for the past few months that I've forgotten the unique Alexander Slytherin definition of 'normal'."

"Aww, I know you love me really, Brenna."

"Really? That's the first I've heard of it," came a voice from behind them.

"Thanks, Adam," Alex said dryly.

"It's true," affirmed an approaching man dressed in red robes.

"Don't be mean," said Maura Gryffindor, smacking her brother Paul. "Nice to have you back, Alex," she added, "though I still think you could have been a little easier on them all."

Alex pouted. "But what's the fun in that?"

"Fun, again," said Margaret Ravenclaw, Brenna's sister, who was approaching with their other sister Sophia. "Why is it that fun for men is always slightly bloodthirsty?"

"Hey! Technically, there was no bloodshed in there!" He paused. "Well… not much."

"Not much, he says," scoffed Sophia. "A half mauled werewolf victim, injuries of the werewolf himself and the person who tried to prevent the attack. And that's not even mentioning—"

"Okay, okay!" Alex raised his hands in surrender. "I get the point!"

"So you'll go easier on them?" asked Brenna.

"I thought it was a pretty good balance, actually," interjected Paul. "You got them worried, then prodded them a bit, and everything turned out fine, didn't it?"

The last of their group were approaching in a dignified trio. "I think that Alex is just taking advantage of the relative free clearance we've got for this project," said Helga Hufflepuff.

Alex grinned. "You know me too well, Gaga."

She glared at him. "I've threatened and I've threatened, but none of you fear the lake as much anymore."

Everyone laughed.

"It's because we've all learnt various tricks, Mum," said Adam. "Paul evaporates the water away, Alex makes the water split on either side, or-"

"We _don't_ need to hear, Adam," Alex intervened quickly.

The other nine people in the room laughed even harder.

"So," said Godric Gryffindor, recovering and retaining his dignity with the gracefulness that only he could manage, "other than Alex going slightly wild, I think that this is turning out quite well."

"Agreed," said Rowena Ravenclaw. "We've got all the major points across, everything's turning out as expected, and we only need to come in a few more times before we can just let things unfold."

"Hmm, yes," said Brenna, sitting down at the table that had just appeared. She pulled out a scroll and unrolled it, looking it over while the others all sat down in their places. "Of course, we can't expect this to turn out _quite_ like any other universe, but hopefully, with a few proddings here and there, we can make it not too radically different."

"Obviously, we'll need to bring in a few more people," Alex mused. "Come to think of that, we haven't fully decided what to do with _him_ yet, have we?"

"No, we haven't." Godric looked thoughtful. "Ideas, anyone?"

There was silence as the ten demi-gods contemplated.

"I quite liked the idea of letting him half-fade," said Paul finally. "Let him recover, swear vengeance, and move into the background, always there but never fully seen."

"Or he could become a partner, almost, of… _that_." Adam shuddered, leaving no doubt as to whom he was talking about.

"Eurgh, no." Sophia shuddered along with Adam, as well as Maura and Margaret. "I think we should imitate what happened originally. He goes over, doesn't like it and comes back."

"But it'll be a lot harder for him to reject, this time," Alex objected. "He'll find it much easier to go along with them…"

Sophia shrugged. "So make it a bit longer before he turns back. He doesn't like how they treat him as an inferior, doesn't like what they're making him do, sees how the other side is actually pretty humane, swallows his pride and offers to be a spy."

Alex thought it over, frowning. "That… might actually work," he allowed. "Could be a bit of a stretch, but I could make it work."

"So we've got a few possibilities," said Godric. "Any other ideas from anyone?"

He was greeted by a sea of shaking heads.

"Keep thinking," Brenna requested, making a mark on her parchment. "I want a good half dozen possibilities before we take a vote. So…" she scanned through the unfurled scroll. "Oh, just asking— has everyone finished their various lists? The ceremony _is_ coming up very soon."

"Alex and Adam are having a tussle over Guess-Who," said Helga.

Brenna frowned. "Try to keep the numbers even," she said. "I want them to have a fair distribution of extras, seeing as we don't have as many people as last time."

"I've got it figured out," said Adam, leaning over to look at Brenna's parchment. "If I have him, then we'll just transfer her—" he jabbed at a name on the list, "—to Alex instead, which leaves us a space in there—" another jab, "—so if we move _her_ from me to _there_, then that makes it all even."

Rowena, who had been following, frowned slightly. "But I don't think she really possesses all the qualities for there," she said. "If Alex has him, then everything can go back to what it was and it all makes sense."

"But I really don't think that Alex should have him," Adam argued. "He has far more Hufflepuff qualities than Slytherin, I think."

"But look at what he has the _potential_ to do," said Alex. "I know that he isn't his counterpart in other worlds, but they all essentially started off the same, and somewhere in him he has an abundance of Slytherin traits."

"But they're not going to be released in this world, so what's the point of that?" Adam asked.

"Brenna, do we _have_ to make the extras equal?" Paul cut in. "It would save a lot of hassle if we could just choose who suits where best."

"I know," she replied, "but we only have eight people, as opposed to the twelve we've had before, so we need to try and walk the line between suitability and numbers."

"About what Adam proposed," said Maura, still looking at the parchment. "Could we transfer _her_ over to there instead of her?"

Helga looked down, frowning. "Possible. But I still say that neither of them are fully proper material for there— they're both very suited here, and if you have to have them there they'd be better as Secondaries—"

She broke off, eyes wide, as all ten of them fell into a silence. It was broken a few seconds later by the sound of Alex's forehead hitting the table.

"Why in the name of Merlin didn't I think of the Secondaries? I _invented_ the damn things!" he said to the wood.

Paul guffawed. "One too many sleepless nights, Alex?"

Alexander Slytherin, demi-god and son of the infamous Salazar Slytherin, raised his head from the table and glared at Paul. "Shut up. And I notice that none of you thought of them either until Gaga mentioned it."

"Enough," Godric quelled the bickering men as well as the inevitable indignant retort from Helga, though he was chuckling himself. "I take it that with the Secondaries, we can shuffle things accordingly and make it all come out right?"

Brenna was scribbling on a spare piece of parchment. "Yes," she said, frowning down at it. "It can work… everyone happy with this?"

She tapped the parchment, which slid into the middle of the table and everyone leaned in to skim through it.

"It makes sense," sighed Rowena, "But that doesn't mean that I particularly like it."

The sentiment was echoed in the expressions of everyone around the table.

"Perfect." Brenna smiled satisfactorily.

Alex groaned. "A perfect compromise is one that no one is happy with? You're spending too much time around someone."

Before Brenna could retort, Alex winced suddenly, and the striking green in his eyes became mingled with a more greenish-gray colour. "Speak of the devil," he muttered under his breath.

Adam raised his eyebrows. "That cue was perfect."

"Do I _have_ to?" Alex's whining voice sounded. All the eyes in the room returned to him as he winced again, and the greenish-gray in his eyes swirled thickly. He sighed. "Fine, fine…"

"Received a call from the almighty ruler?" asked Paul, grin plastered across his face.

Alex shot him a glare as he stood up from the table. "Shut up," he said again. "Anyway, I'm off. You lot able to manage without me?"

Helga snorted. "You wish. We managed well enough the past few months, didn't we?"

Alex shrugged. "Good luck anyway." The other colour in his eyes returned. "I'm coming, I'm coming…" he muttered, then turned around on the spot and disappeared.

The remaining nine people in the room looked at each other, chuckling.

"She's a good influence on him," said Godric fondly.

There were various sounds of agreement, and then Maura sighed blissfully and leaned backwards in her chair.

"And now that he's gone, we can get some peaceful work done."

* * *

Sirius Black felt like he'd been punched in the eye, slapped in the face, drowned, brought back from the dead, pushed around a bit, and had his lungs filled with stuff that shouldn't be there.

_And, surprise surprise, that's exactly what happened._

He shivered again in the early morning air, coughing and tasting grit in his mouth. The sound was painfully hacking in the recently fallen silence of the other five people around the lake edge.

"Are you okay?" Lily asked him quietly, when Aletha couldn't look him in the eye.

_And that's what going to happen now, isn't it. Hate me for the werewolf incident, or pity me for the suicide._

_Even James can't look at me._

Remembering that Lily had asked him a question, he nodded weakly at her. The red headed girl raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged.

None of them noticed the small pair of eyes looking down at them from a tower.

"Well, we can't stay here forever," Evanie finally said. "It's January, after all."

"We should go inside," offered Peter.

"Yes, we should," Aletha said quickly, sounding grateful for a topic of conversation. "The common room?"

"No," said Lily. "We've kept the House in their dorms for long enough––we should let them down now, or they'll start wondering."

The small pair of eyes withdrew, unnoticed, while Sirius wondered vaguely why the whole House was still being kept in their dormitories.

"True," Aletha was saying. "Well, there's no point in going to the hospital wing…" She let the sentence drop, implications clear. Sirius closed his eyes again, trying to push away the resurfacing shame.

James looked around. After he had hugged Sirius, he had turned away and stared out over the lake, ignoring everyone else. "There's the passageway behind the mirror on the fourth floor," he offered slightly hoarsely.

_The passageway?_ Sirius' mind was still working rather slowly. _Oh. That passageway._

It had been Sirius who had found that roomy tunnel behind the mirror a few years back, when they were running from Filch. It had a rather… interesting password, the sort of thing which someone was likely to, and Sirius did, say when being pursued by an angry caretaker. It had provided the four Marauders with a hiding-place then, but later they had spent half an hour re-enacting the scene until they pinned down the exact password.

_So…yeah, that'll make a good place for us to stay out of the way for the time being. And I'm pretty sure that it'll fit all seven of us in…_

_Hang on. There's only six people, including me, right here right now._

_Where's Danger?_

His memory supplied him with the time, barely half an hour ago, when he had seen Danger asleep in the common room, with Aletha sleeping in the armchair next to her.

_But Letha's obviously awake now…why isn't Danger?_

He recalled the fading scents of the huge shock in the common room, which we was pretty sure belonged to Danger.

_So… she fainted?_

Definitely not, he decided. Firstly, Danger simply wasn't the type of girl who would just faint, and secondly, his nose had undoubtedly told him that she was just asleep.

Before he could ruminate on this matter any further, he felt himself being shaken slightly.

"Sirius?"

He realized with a small jolt that his mind had started wandering when he'd closed his eyes, and he'd drifted out of reality for a moment. He forced his eyelids apart and found himself looking at Aletha, who quickly averted her eyes now she saw that he was awake.

_Well, I was awake anyway. I just don't feel like it. And judging by the way that my mind feels like it's turning circles in mud, I'm probably not alert either._

He pulled his wandering mind back to base. "Yes?" he croaked, noticing that James, Lily, Peter and Evanie were already making their way back up to the castle.

"We've decided to set up camp in that passageway James told us about," said Aletha, looking over at a tree over to his left. "Those four have gone ahead. Can you walk?"

Sirius blinked slightly at the abrupt topic change, then pushed at the ground gingerly with his arms. Aletha helped him up into a rough sitting position, and he flexed his sore legs in front of him. "Probably," he said weakly, "but I doubt it'll be for long."

"Right." Aletha looked up at the castle, then the long walk from where they were now to there. "Do you think you'll be able to manage just up to the castle? When we're indoors, I'll be able to Levitate you to that passageway if you tell me where to go."

Sirius looked pensively at the large stretch of lawn between them and the castle. The other four were just nearing the big front doors. He gritted his teeth. "I'll try," he said.

"If you're sure." Aletha stood up, tucking her wand into the pocket of her dressing gown (which she had donned soon after she realized Sirius was going to live), then reached down and wrapped her arms around Sirius' right arm, pulling him up.

She was still refusing to look him in the eye.

Sirius winced as his legs protested feebly when he put weight on them. He leaned on Aletha, who supported his upper arm, staring straight ahead.

Trying to take his mind away from the dull ache in his calf and his knees which were threatening to give each time he put a foot down gingerly, he asked Aletha one of the questions which had been bothering him. "Where's… Danger?" _What happened to her? Why was she asleep? Why were _you_ asleep, for that matter…_

"In the common room," answered Aletha shortly, answering the only question she'd heard. "She had a massive shock and got knocked unconscious." Aletha paused, her brisk outlook faltering for a moment. "It… it's a long story. I'll tell you later when we're safe in the tunnel."

Sirius nodded, not having the energy to argue or demand more answers. He did, however, have a few more questions he needed to be answered in order to satisfy his curiosity. "Why's… the whole House… being kept up… in the dorms?"

"Ah." Letha frowned. "It's part of the long story… let's just say that it was to stop them being curious."

_Great. Every step I take, I get more and more questions…_

_May as well shut up._

It was a good decision, he thought later. The silence may have been uncomfortable, but they were not quite half way up to the castle and his energy was already starting to dwindle. Aletha seemed to sense his growing fatigue, whether consciously or subconsciously, and was tightening her grip on his arm.

_Just up to the castle, Sirius… not that long any more…_

One step forward. Another one. Lean heavier on Letha. Another step forward. Legs getting weaker. Lean.

_I guess I'm kind of lucky that Letha plays Quidditch, especially Beater. That requires a lot of upper-arm strength, and Merlin is she needing that right now._

_Strength. Something which I have just about none of, right now._

_And it's not just the utter physical weakness that came from nearly dying––it's that frame of mind that drove me to nearly kill myself._

He still didn't know what he felt about that, he admitted to himself. Part of him felt, like before, as if his friends had no need of his stupidity any longer, and that he was doing them a favour by getting rid of himself. After all, who needs an empty-headed drunk who blurted out the innermost secrets to enemies? Yes, he was doing them a favour.

A favour to them all.

And yet, a part of himself had rejoiced when he'd woken up by the lake edge. He had been glad to see Letha's face, and James', and Peter's, and Evanie's and Lily's… he was happy that he was alive. He was only seventeen. Lots of people made mistakes at seventeen.

_Mistakes that threaten best friends' lives?_

One of these days, Sirius thought to himself, he was going to find out exactly who that annoying voice in his head sounded like and tell them exactly what he thought of them.

xXxXx

Remus was drawing little patterns in the sand with his finger. "Anything?" he asked Danger.

"Hmm," she said, poring over the piece of paper. "I think I might have something."

"Really?" Remus looked up, interested.

"Yes. The first stanza… _Your loyal love's a two-edged sword_," she recited. "Did I actually tell you what'd happened when James told us about your furry little problem?"

Remus found that he didn't care as much about his 'furry little problem' as much as he did around ten minutes ago.

_Must be a side effect of being trapped in a dream with a girl that I love._

Remus slammed on his mental brakes and backtracked to that last sentence. Specifically, the last word.

_Where in the name of all four Founders did that thought come from?_

Remus pushed that thought aside when he noticed Danger staring at him, one eyebrow playfully raised.

_Erm…yeah. She asked me a question. Right._

"I don't think you have," he answered as she chuckled. "Why? What does it have to do with the poem?"

I am not blushing, no I am not… Why would I be blushing anyway? 

"Well…" Danger ducked her head down, tracing her own patterns in the sand. "I couldn't hear anything except the rushing in my ears, and then I started thinking things like how much I valued friendship and fidelity, and did Sirius really not care about them… things like that." Danger paused, obviously not feeling Remus' pumping heart. "And then I screamed," she finished frankly, "screamed and screamed, and then the next thing I remember is the dream."

_Merlin's beard—she knocked herself out because of _me?

"Look," he said, thinking hard of ice water just in case he really was blushing. "I appreciate the fact that you care for me and all that, but it really isn't Sirius' fault—"

"_Not_ his _fault_?" Danger all but screeched. "You trusted him, Remus, and he went and flung away that trust inside a bottle of Firewhiskey!"

Remus held up a hand to quell the irate witch in front of him. "Look, I know it sounds bad, but…" he shrugged, "I guess it's just that it's gone so far already that getting angry with him isn't really going to help. If there hadn't been any bloodshed and nothing had happened with the law, I probably would be angry with him. I might have blanked him for a month, but in the end I know that we would have made up. In the long run, it would probably be so that he would learn a lesson, but now he's got the huge consequences already to deal with. Me becoming angry with him wouldn't help at all."

Danger had started shaking her head halfway through his speech. "You're far to noble for your own good, you know that?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Part of it is Marauders' unity, I suppose. Ever since second year, those three have been in every part of my life," _More so since fifth year…_ "and it'll be so much easier to go through this with us all standing together."

He chilled again at the thought of what was happening in the real world, but banished it quickly.

_Not important right now._

"So what were you saying about 'loyal love'?" he asked, shaking his head to remove the last vestiges of the shiver.

"What?" Danger read through the first few lines of the prophecy again. "Oh, right. Well, the next line; 'It brings you pain,'—"

"Ah, right, yes." _After all, she did scream herself out when faced with Sirius' 'betrayal of trust', as she called it._ "So what about the next part?" he asked aloud.

"'It brings you pain, and wild might / To help you end the wolfish night,'" recited Danger.

"_What?_" Remus started, then grabbed the parchment and read through the two lines. _No, it can't mean that…it's impossible…_

"Yes?" Danger was asking. "Did you get something?"

"No," said Remus slowly. _It's definitely not possible, and I'm making things up._ "It just… fluttered through my mind and went again." He tried an apologetic smile as he handed the parchment back to her.

Danger lifted her eyebrows at him, but let it pass. "So, the next stanza, then?"

"Yes, go on," Remus told her, trying to concentrate. _You've got too much on your mind, Moony. Focus._

Danger read through the next four lines. "'Though fool he was, and fool still be/ The darkest star deserves his plea. / Forgive, move past, but do not let / Yourselves or him the truth forget.' Darkest star…" Danger mused once she had finished. "Why does that feel like I should understand it?"

"Because it's basically telling you what I was saying earlier," Remus realised, light dawning in his head, "about Sirius. His name—"

"Star." Danger nodded in satisfaction. "Sirius Black, darkest star."

"Exactly." Remus thought through the rest of the stanza. "The darkest star deserves his plea… that's just telling us to forgive him, isn't it? He's bound to be pleading with us not to hold it against him…"

"Yes, the next part does mention forgive," confirmed Danger. "'Forgive, move past, but do not let / Yourselves or him the truth forget.'"

"Forgive him, but don't let anyone forget about this," Remus translated. He shrugged. "Easy enough, considering that I was going to do that anyway."

"All nice and easy for you to say," grumbled Danger. "I still want to rip him to pieces for this…stupid idiot…"

"He always was an idiot," said Remus, "and even the poem knows it. Look. Though fool he was, and fool still be."

"Do you know how annoying it is to be chided by a poem in iambic tetrameter?"

"Do you have anything against poetry in iambic tetrameter?"

"Yes, actually."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Do I have to give a reason?"

"Yes."

"Darn you, Remus Lupin."

Remus grinned at her. She rolled her eyes at him.

"Can we move on to the next part now?" she asked.

"Fine with me."

"'These four; yourself and mentioned three / Must speak the words to set you free. / To bind you, with a solemn oath/ To those who have now plighted troth / And scurrier and scarréd maid/ For only thus will you gain great aid.'"

Silence reigned for a few moments after Danger's recital of the next six lines. Finally, Remus spoke.

"I can't really make anything out of that," he said, slightly frustrated. "It says four people; that'd be you and Sirius, because he was mentioned, but apparently there were two other people mentioned in there as well. And all the rest, solemn oaths and troths and such…I have no idea."

"The last line…" said Danger, "well, to me it looks as if it's saying if we do this, we'll get a lot of help."

"But we don't actually know what you're supposed to do."

"I'm not sure…" Danger frowned, and tipped her head slightly on one side. "I've got a feeling about that. It's probably going to come clear to me when we need to know what to do, no sooner, not later."

Remus raised an eyebrow. _This is turning out to be even crazier than the normal dreams I have._

"This is turning out to be even crazier than the normal dreams _I_ have, and I can control those," retorted Danger. Then her eyes widened, face reddened, and she looked away. "Whoops."

Remus was frowning. "Did you just reply to something that I _thought_?"

"Erm…maybe?"

"You can hear my thoughts?"

She didn't reply.

"Is this usual for your dreams?"

**No.**

He started. He had heard her voice, loud and clear, and yet he hadn't seen her move her mouth at all…

**Can you hear me?** he thought 'loudly' in the direction of Danger.

She jumped and looked back at him. **Was that you?**

**Yes.** Remus paused to gather his thoughts. **This dream just got even crazier.**

**You don't say.**

xXxXx

Lily felt dizzy as she walked up the staircase; the events of the morning so far had been far too much to comprehend. First had been the revelation of Remus' curse, then Sirius' stupidity, and then James had proposed to her…

She smiled as she reached the first years' dormitory, feeling the disillusioned ring around her finger.

That was probably the most unexpected and best thing that could have happened.

She opened the door to five first-year girls doing each others' hair, it seemed, out of boredom. Lily raised her eyebrow at the various hairstyles they were sporting.

"Yes, Miss Evans?"

"Can we go down to breakfast now?"

"Yes, you can," said Lily, trying not to laugh at the extent of their apparent boredom. "We've tidied everything up, and you can be sure that this won't happen again."

"That's good." A girl with seven thick blonde plaits coming out of her head scampered towards her. "Are you going to tell us who it was?"

Lily laughed. "I would love to, but that wouldn't be very nice for the person who it was." She laughed again at the disappointed looks on the girls' faces.

People around here just can't wait for the latest piece of gossip… 

"So get yourselves down to breakfast, and you might want to…erm…tidy up your hair before you go downstairs."

A tide of giggles swept her out of the room, as well as a "See you, Miss Evans!"

_Soon to be Mrs. Potter…_

She giggled herself as she closed the door behind her. _Lily Potter. Lily Evans-Potter. Lily Cecilia Evans Potter…_

_I like the sound of those._

Thoughts about her future life with James occupied her all the way up the next flight.

_Will we have a traditional wizarding wedding? I'm completely Muggle-born, but James said that his parents are quite traditional—not to the point of stupid prejudices, of course…so yes, we probably will get married traditionally._

_I can't wait to have kids. Well, if James wants to wait, then that's fine as well, but I just can't wait to love children of my own…_

_I'd adore a little girl. And it would be really interesting, as well, if what James says about his hair is true. If there really _is_ a Potter gene for messy black hair, then I'd like to see how that would work on a long black-haired little girl…_

_Unless she gets my genes instead…_

Pictures of long red haired little girls with hazel eyes occupied her mind as she reached the second years' dormitory, smiling.

There were faint thumping sounds of music drifting out from behind the door. Lily paused just before she knocked, trying to make out what the girls were listening to.

"_I wanna fly to the stars,_

"_And pick one for you…_"

A man's voice took over the woman's.

"_I wanna prove beyond doubt,_

"_That I love you so true…_"

Lily recognised it immediately. "I Wanna" by TrueLife wizarding band had been an instant hit when it was released, and the WWN was forever playing it.

_I wonder if James likes it…_

Pulling her thoughts away from her fiancé, which was a hard task in itself because they desperately wanted to stay there, she knocked on the door.

There were a series of muffled thumps, then the volume of the music diminished considerably and then a girls' voice called out, "Come in!"

Lily poked her head into the dorm, chuckling. "Is it safe for me to come in, or are you all still wondering how to get your latest boy to fall for your singing?"

All five girls immediately assumed an expression of 'Who, us? Never!'

Lily raised her eyebrows at them.

"We were just listening to music, honest."

She sighed, amused. "Fine, fine. But you might want to turn the wireless off and go to breakfast; you've got the all-clear to go downstairs now."

"Finally!"

Laughing, she withdrew her head and proceeded up to the third years' dormitory. Her mind, inevitably, returned to her future with James.

_Do purebloods have some sort of christening ceremony? It would be nice if we did, so we could have an official naming or christening ceremony for our children…_

_Well, there must be some sort of ceremony. Lots of purebloods have godparents, and they have ceremonies for everything._

_Who would be the godparents to our children? I know that James would want Sirius as godfather— Well, he would have wanted Sirius as godfather before today._

She sighed to herself. _This is crazy. All of it. Completely and utterly mad. And it's only— she checked her watch— eight o'clock in the morning._

_How are we going to survive the lessons today?_

She had Potions first thing on Wednesday mornings, and realised with a start that they'd be missing almost half the class, what with Severus, Remus, and Sirius.

Well, Sirius would be staying out of class if he knew what was good for him. His body needed time to recover from his little stunt.

Severus—she hoped he'd be okay. They'd developed a friendship over the years, and even though he and James hated each other she always managed to walk in the middle.

_Though he seems to be spending an awful amount of time with Danger these days…_

She frowned. Everyone could see that Remus and Danger were meant for each other, but she was spending too much time with another boy and he was taking it the wrong way. Which, admittedly, was probably what Danger was aiming for.

_I hope they sort themselves out soon, considering what might happen…_

She sighed to herself, and slowed down on the stairs to think things through.

Nobody, most likely including himself, really knew what to think about Sirius any more. He'd always been an idiot, but the past two idiotic actions had gone past the 'stupid' sector on the scale.

_No, it's shot past that on an accelerating broomstick, then pogo-stick-ed across the 'Really Stupid' part, tripped and fell past 'Astonishingly and mind-bogglingly stupid' and finally screeched to a halt at the end of the scale._

And Sirius knew that.

_I hope he doesn't do anything else stupid…I won't be able to cope with that._

Aletha probably wouldn't be able to cope either; not for the first time, Lily had second thoughts about leaving the two of them together. But, she admitted, they did need to have a talk. And then James and herself were letting the house out of their dormitories, and Peter and Evanie were fetching Danger. They'd all meet in the passageway James had mentioned.

_Okay, enough thought for now. Hurry up and let the hungry people out of their dormitories._

_Although I know some of the third years never seem properly hungry…_

She chuckled to herself as she knocked on the door. Alicia Davidson was a small brunette who loved studying with a passion. Professor Flitwick had asked Lily to tutor her in some extra Charms work whenever they had free time, and Alicia was always enthusiastic and eager to learn. However, they'd had to miss out on mealtimes sometimes when that was the only free time they could make…

The door was opened by Rachel Aitken, one of Alicia's friends, before Lily could start wondering how many times she could say 'time' within a paragraph.

"Hi, Lily. Everything been sorted out by now?"

"Got it in one. Have you tidied your stuff up?"

"Yup." Rachel stepped aside and granted Lily access to the dormitory.

"Nice one. No one would be able to tell what had happened in here," Lily commented, entering and looking around.

"It was Alicia," Kate Goldsack told her while smoothing out a wrinkle in the bed sheet under her. "She couldn't wait to practice some of the tidying charms you'd taught her."

Lily smiled. "Where is she, by the way?"

"In the bathroom—" Kate was cut off by the dormitory bathroom door opening, and Alicia stepping out.

She froze when she noticed Lily. When Lily looked at her questioningly, she forced a small smile onto her face. Lily frowned, and walked over to her.

"That was a fantastic _Reparo_ you did on the windows back then," Lily said, trying to make conversation as she walked closer to Alicia. There was something troubling the young girl, and Lily wanted to know what.

Alicia turned and looked out of the window, at the lake. "I don't know," she said uneasily.

_Something's wrong,_ Lily thought, unnecessarily. Then she remembered the other four girls who were starting to get interested in what was happening between her and Alicia; they usually got on so well. "Hey, you four," she said, half turning. "Would you mind going upstairs and letting the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh years down?"

"Aye-aye," said Rachel, grinning, and the four of them made their way out of the door.

Lily turned her full attention back to Alicia. "What's wrong?" she asked quietly, even though they were alone in an empty room.

Alicia was still staring out of the window. Her hands were in front of her, Lily noticed, and she was rubbing her left thumbnail with her right thumb. She only did that when she was nervous. "I don't know," she said again, in the same uneasy tone. "Can—can I talk to you a bit later?"

"Yes, of course," Lily said, frowning slightly. She laid one hand on Alicia's back, then walked out of the room.

* * *

Aletha gently lowered Sirius down onto the floor of the passageway and cancelled the levitation spell. He sat up, propping himself against the wall, and stretched gingerly. She sat down as well, a metre or so away from him, leaning on the opposite wall.

A very tense silence passed between them, neither looking at the other.

_God, I know I have to talk to him…I just have no bloody idea how!_

He coughed slightly, obviously trying to minimise the volume of the hacking sound. She turned towards him, intending to ask if she could do anything, but the words that came out of her mouth were definitely not offers of help.

"Why'd you do it?" she asked bluntly.

He coughed slightly more violently this time, and wiped his sleeve across his mouth once he had finished. "I suppose 'because you told me so' doesn't really count," he rasped.

"No, it damn well does not!" she replied hotly. "I've told plenty of people to go jump in the lake before; just as often as Danger threatens to throw them out of the window. And as far as I've seen, nobody's taken her seriously enough to fly out of Gryffindor tower!"

He winced at the volume of her words. She consciously turned her voice down slightly, then carried on fiercely.

"You just be really grateful that hexing you to hell and back right now would be a bad idea, because if it wasn't then you can bet that that's what I'd be doing. How stupid can you get, for heaven's sake, Sirius? How selfish and egotistical?"

Sirius shrugged and coughed again, weakly. "I don't know," he said hoarsely. "I guess… well, it was pretty stupid of me…"

"'Pretty stupid' doesn't begin to cover it." Aletha slumped against the wall, exhausted and exasperated. "This is so crazy," she said in a voice just above a whisper.

"I know." The two words seemed to drain Sirius, and they sat in silence for a few moments.

"I fell in love with a stupid Sirius Black," Aletha found herself saying after a moment. "A stupid, recklessly brave Sirius Black. I liked his stupid. His was a cute-stupid, the foolish naïveté that makes everyone laugh. I fell in love with a playful Sirius Black, loyal to the point of stupidity." Those grey eyes of his were fixed on her, tired but listening to her every word, carrying a hint of confusion.

"Letha…"

"No," she interrupted, silencing him. "Hear me through." She closed her eyes, so she wouldn't have to look at his disconcerting grey eyes, and so she could collect her thoughts. "That was the Sirius Black who I knew, and the Sirius Black who I fell in love with. And now the same Sirius Black has just gone and done something—no, two things—which just don't fit my view of him. Sirius Black loves his friends and his life, and would do anything for them, including walking into a Killing curse meant for any one of his friends… he would…" her eyes shot open, "he would… protect… them from… anything…"

She stared at him incredulously. "That's it, isn't it?" She scrambled into a kneeling position, so she could look at him better. "You think that you're too dangerous to be around, and so by getting rid of yourself, you're protecting us?"

Staring at her, Sirius nodded dumbly.

Aletha looked at him for a few moments. "That… that… that is the most stupid thing you could have done, you bloody prat!" She sat back against the wall, either crying or laughing hysterically.

She vaguely heard Sirius clearing his throat. "Back to Sirius Black stupid?" he asked, in a slightly rough voice.

"Yes," she replied simply, "_my_ Sirius stupid."

* * *

Evanie made sure her wand was steady as she kept it pointing towards Danger, who was floating ahead of her. It was a difficult task to make sure that the unconscious girl wasn't run into anything that might hurt her, and Evanie was glad for the distraction. Peter was going ahead to pull aside the tapestry, which, he'd assured her, was a shortcut to the corridor leading to the passageway behind the mirror.

She saw Peter gesturing to her from behind a large blue and green depiction of what appeared to be sea creatures, and guided her footsteps towards him, diligently making sure that she didn't walk Danger into a wall by accident when she turned. They made it into the small corridor within the tapestry without incident, and then Peter closed the tapestry and enveloped them with darkness.

"Peter—what—?"

"Hang on."

Several candles flickered into existence around them, and Evanie could see the small rickety staircase going downwards that was, presumably, the shortcut. She turned to Peter, who was tucking his wand back into his pocket.

"Are we going down, then?"

"Not yet," he replied softly. "Put Danger down; you look like you're in need of some comforting."

Evanie gave a small sniff as she lowered her classmate and cancelled the charm; her emotions were a tangled mixture of the rising hysteria that she had been fighting all morning and gratefulness towards Peter for having noticed and done something about it. Just when she was putting away her wand, she felt his arms come around her from behind and squeeze her gently, the pressure soft enough to be comforting and firm enough to be reassuring.

"I'm sorry," he said, "for not telling you about Moony before. But we found out almost by accident in second year, and we promised him we wouldn't tell anyone; I think that only Dumbledore, McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey knew about it before we did."

"How did you find out?" she asked him quietly.

"Pretty much the same as Danger, really, except we didn't have someone give us a dead give-away," he laughed slightly. "He'd go away every month, saying that his mother was always ill, and come back exhausted and tired, and complaining about being cold… Oh, and there was that time when he wouldn't go near Sirius' collection of old-style coins…"

"Old-style coins?"

"Oh, you know Sickles? They're not real silver—not any more, anyway. Moony says that it was one of the few things that werewolf advocacy groups managed to do; they got the Sickles changed to fake silver in the 1800s, but all the Sickles before that are pure silver, and werewolves—"

"Werewolves have something along the lines of a chemical burn upon contact with silver, yes, I know," Evanie finished.

"How'd you know?"

"Well… I read up on them after…"

"Ah, yes." Peter's arms squeezed reassuringly around her. She could feel the small lump in his robes that was his father's wedding ring pressing into her back slightly, but instead of being annoying and in the way, it was rather comforting… "Come to think of that," Peter said, sounding like he was frowning slightly, "you haven't said how you feel about the whole werewolf business."

"No, I haven't…" Evanie sighed, then broke away and sat down facing Peter. She tucked her hair behind her ears, thinking hard, as Peter sat down beside her.

Subconsciously, her right hand went from tucking her hair behind her ear to stroking down the longest white scar that went from her right cheek, going diagonally across her chin and neck and then further down onto her chest. She had always tucked her hair behind her ears when she was thinking; it was a habit, like it was for Peter to bite his tongue when thinking hard about a question. After the werewolf attack, she'd soon discovered that whenever she was thinking about it, her hand would move from her hair to her scars…

"I'm not absolutely terrified of him, if that's what you're going after," she said at last, "but everything goes a lot further than that. You'd think that, after nearly being killed by one, I'd be absolutely terrified of werewolves now, but the thing is, I'm not."

Peter frowned and leaned forwards. "Go on."

"It's like…I came so close to almost being a werewolf, and it's the thought of that which absolutely terrifies me. I'd never properly thought about it before, but the idea of being transformed against my will and losing my mind every month sounds awful, and it's something I would definitely not want, at all. So, I guess that that's why I'm leaning more towards 'sympathetic' towards werewolves; it's just properly thinking about it."

Peter was nodding, following her words. Evanie went on, feeling herself warming to her subject. "If I'd be bitten, I wouldn't receive special care from the Ministry, just because I have been a human every day of my life so far, and becoming a werewolf would have been a complete accident. All the werewolves were probably bitten because of some accident or the other, and suddenly they're lesser mortals, 'dangerous' creatures, unsafe beings to be around. And this could just be because, say, they didn't lock their door properly, or they left something outside after dark, or they were just unlucky and fell victim to somebody like Fenrir Greyback."

"You haven't talked about it like this before, have you?" Peter asked.

She shook her head. "No, I haven't."

"I thought so. If you'd said that anywhere near Moony, he would have loved you." Peter laughed. "In the proper sense, of course."

"Of course. Everyone can see that it's Danger he's going after." But then Evanie's face grew more serious. "But, Peter, this is where it all gets confusing. I mean, I've already made it obvious that I'm not prejudiced or irrationally terrified of werewolves, but when James just told us that Remus was one…"

"You were afraid," said Peter, obviously just recalling. "You whimpered slightly, and touched your scars."

"Yes." Evanie lifted her hand to touch at her scar again, but flung it away and burst out. "Why, Peter? I've convinced myself that I'm not afraid of werewolves, and that I'm sympathetic to their pain, but when someone reveals to me that one of my own friends is a werewolf, I go all bloody wimp!"

Peter reached for her, calming her down. She slumped against him.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I could have dealt with it on my own, but then everything just happened…"

"I know," he said. "Look, I'm no expert, but do you want me to say what I think is happening?"

"Please."

"First of all: emotional overload. You were worst hit by the werewolf news, but you didn't have time to assimilate the information before Sirius went and did his stunt…" Peter's face tightened slightly, and Evanie made a mental note to talk with him about that after he'd finished helping her with her demons, "and so it's been building up inside you and that's not good."

She chuckled weakly.

"Next, though, I think that, when you've been thinking about feeling sympathetic and being nice to werewolves, you're thinking of them as an abstract part of reality, something that comes into real life but it'll never really merge. When it did nearly merge during the summer, your mind dealt with that by accepting it as part of reality, but not part of your reality, if you get what I mean."

Evanie frowned. "So you're basically saying that you think I accepted werewolves as a whole, but faced with individual werewolves I still might panic?"

"Isn't it true?"

She sighed. "Before today, I don't know what I'd've said. But after the obvious proof this morning, I guess that it's true."

"Well, we know what the solution to that is," said Peter, regaining his cheerfulness. "You spend some more time around Moony, and accept him as a werewolf—first step forwards, after all."

"Small problem with that—how do I spend more time around someone who's at the ministry?"

"Ah." Peter scowled. "I'd forgotten about that."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Evanie asked gently. "You've just helped me, and I'm pretty sure that you've got something you need to talk about…"

"Yes, I do," admitted Peter, "but later. I've not completely comprehended what's just happened, and it'll probably be better if I…wait…for a bit before discussing how I feel."

"Point taken." Evanie cast around for a topic change, preferably a more cheerful one. "Oh—you know what you were saying about James, and Lily?"

Peter looked momentarily confused. "James—Oh! Did you see if they were wearing rings?" His eye had the glint in it that all Marauders shared when uncovering a piece of particularly juicy information for a prank.

Evanie decided to tease him a bit with it. "Yeah, I got a full view of both James' and Lily's left ring fingers when we were walking in."

"And?" Peter looked so eager that Evanie had to laugh and give in.

"They were completely normal. No extras, or any other kind of jewellery."

"Oh."

_If he looked any more disappointed, he'd be climbing out of the hole he made when slumping back down on the floor._

This analogy sent her into a fit of giggles for several minutes, with poor Peter not knowing what was so funny. Just when she was winding down, they heard a small sound coming from the corner just where the tapestry was. It took them just a moment to remember that that was where Danger was lying. It took Evanie less than a moment to hurry to the other girl's side.

"Danger?" she said, shaking her gently. "You awake?"

Danger's eyes shot open with a gasp. "Remus!" she yelped.

_Oh dear._ "He's at the ministry," Evanie told her. "It's Evanie and Peter."

"No…he was right here…" Was it the flickering candlelight, or were Danger's eyes a little off-colour?

"Are you alright, Danger?" Peter asked from behind Evanie.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine…" she replied distractedly, frowning.

Evanie looked over her shoulder at Peter, who shrugged back at her. She sighed again, and turned, with a slight feeling of helplessness at the strange situation, back to Danger.

"Look, we're going to… well… a safe place for now. Are you okay to stand and walk there?"

"What?" Danger's eyes focussed on her. "Oh, right, safe place. How far is it?"

"Not far—around two minute from here," replied Peter.

"I should be fine," she said, brusquely stretching her limbs and then standing up. She wobbled for a moment, then righted herself and looked around. "Down the stairs, right?"

"After you."

* * *

**We need to have a serious conversation about this,** Danger said silently as she was going down the stairs.

**When, exactly?** came a voice that she normally heard with her ears, not with her mind as she appeared to be doing now.

**Any bloody time we want to, apparently,** she retorted. **How on earth does this work, anyway?**

**Don't ask me, I don't have a clue. Except maybe as a leftover from our shared dream…**

**What, we dreamt we could hear each other in our minds, and now suddenly we can?**

**It's not normal to share dreams in the first place, you know,** he said in that damned reasonable voice of his. **How are we supposed to know that this ****isn't because of that dream?**

**Darn you, Remus Lupin.**

He chuckled. **That's the second time you've said that within five minutes.**

**I was _trying _to be hot-headed and irrational, you know, **Danger grumbled as she reached the bottom of the staircase and went through the tapestry into the corridor, **and I don't appreciate it when you talk all bloody ****reason with me!**

She could sense him rolling his eyes. **Save it for someone who doesn't know you enough to know that you're kidding.**

**How do you know that I'm kidding?**

**Do you want the full list, the partial list, or do you want me to shut up?**

**Hmm.** Danger appeared to give the question serious thought. **I think I'll go with the last option.**

**Think whatever you want. Oh, we're here, by the way.**

Danger stopped in front of a large, ornate mirror set into the wall. **Right, what's the password?**

**You have stand in front of it, putting your left hand on the glass—**Danger did so**—and say the password.**

**Which is?**

Remus told her.

Danger snorted out loud. **You're joking, right?**

**I wish.**

"Danger!"

**Whoops.**

"We've been calling for you to slow down for ages," said Evanie, she and Peter stopping beside her, "but you didn't hear us—how did you know where to go?"

**Whoops indeed.**

"Erm… long story," Danger said, slightly inanely as Peter opened the passageway. "I'll explain later," she said at Evanie's raised eyebrow.

**Yes, about that,** Remus was saying, **how do we explain this?**

**Are you suggesting that 'We can talk to each other in our heads, any questions?' won't— **Danger caught sight of Sirius, slumped against the wall of the passageway, looking tattered and exhausted.

**Calm it,** Remus told her sharply, before her anger could start simmering again. **Yelling won't help, and the prophecy's telling you to forgive him.**

**Also said to not let him forget what happened.**

**Fine. **She could hear him sighing mentally. **Can we wait until he looks more alive before you shout at him, then?**

**If you say so.**

**I do. And I think you should say something to him; you've just been standing there for the last few seconds staring at him.**

**Right. **"What happened to you?" Danger finally said bluntly.

**Smooth.**

**Shut up.**

"Erm…" Sirius sounded rather hoarse and unsure, and looked over to where Danger had just noticed Aletha was sitting. She rolled her eyes and nodded at him. "Well… I walked into the lake."

"You did WHAT?"

Danger started. That had not been her voice coming out of her mouth. Aware of the eight eyes scrutinising her, she closed her eyes.

**You know that explanation we were talking about earlier?**

**Yes. Give the short version first, I want to hear exactly how Sirius has been stupid this time…**

* * *

**A/N:** First things first; yes, this was meant to be finished and posted earlier. However, due to one thing or another... well. You can imagine.

Another thing I'd like to point out quickly- the first scene was written around the time the last chapter was published. In other words, a couple of months ago, and while I'm sure that most people have cottoned on to the various developments in the Dangerverse world, some people may be slightly confused. Oh well. Your funeral.

And finally: rejoice at my new personal fanfic archive! I have another site to post this story on; the link is in my profile (the Homepage link)


	6. Explanations and Confrontations

**Author Notes:**  
Hey, look at this! An update that didn't take five months in the coming! Thank (or blame) PaNoWriMo. Anyway, this isn't beta'd and I (personally) think it's not terribly great, but you can make your own decision after you've read.

* * *

Chapter 6: Explanations and Confrontations

"Danger! You're awake!"

"I am? Yes, I suppose I am."

Aletha rolled her eyes. "Hello Lily, hello James, you got here just in time."

"For what?" asked James as he settled himself in between Sirius and Peter, leaning against one side of the passageway. Aletha was on the other side of Sirius, Evanie of Peter, Danger was just sitting down in the middle and Lily looked around the stone passageway before lowering herself to the ground roughly between Aletha and Danger.

"An explanation, which, I'm sure, is bound to be very interesting and illuminating," said Aletha, showing a great deal more positive spirit than she had around half an hour ago.

Then again, half an hour ago she'd just been for a swim in the lake.

"Regarding?"

Instead of answering, Aletha pointed to Danger, who waved to James.

"Hi Prongs."

Lily blinked. For one second there, she had thought she'd heard Remus' voice coming out of Danger's mouth…

"Moony?"

All right, it wasn't just me…

"I think the explanation would be rather welcome right now," she said dryly.

"After they've said their part, can me and Evanie say our theory as to why?" interjected Peter just before Danger could begin.

"Don't see why not," replied James. "Danger, if you please…?"

Danger grinned. "Hold onto your seats, everybody, it's going to be a bumpy ride…"

By the time she'd finished her story of dreams and prophecies and tidal waves, Lily fully appreciated the warning. "That's…strange," she finally said after the few moments of silence. "So you woke up right after you'd discovered the connection?"

"Yes," said Danger, nodding. "Probably because we might have thought that the connection was only in the dream, so we wake up and discover, pretty soon, that it's in real life as well. And no sooner than it was, so we wouldn't just be awake and suddenly start hearing each other's voices in our heads."

Lily rubbed her forehead. _Such an…_interesting_ morning._ "Peter, Evanie, you said you had a theory?" she asked, looking up at them. _We might as well try and get some sense out of this._

"Yeah," said Peter, sitting up straighter. "Well—Evanie had most of the ideas—"

"And you connected them together," Evanie interrupted, rolling her eyes, "so hurry up and spill it."

"If you say so," he said, shrugging. Lily and Aletha exchanged glances and small sniggers. "Have any of you heard of the theory of latent magic?"

Danger frowned slightly. "Remus has," she said. "Something about people born with magic but it never shows? Like Squibs?"

"Very close, yes," allowed Peter. "Latent magicians, according to the theory that Evanie read, are people who are born as muggles and, more often than not, don't know a thing about magic. They could live out their whole lives without knowing about magic."

"The theory was that some latents actually can have their power released," Evanie carried own smoothly. "And the only way that seemed to happen was when they have a big shock."

Peter took over again. "So we figured out that it was probably all to do with the magical core and the soul, as they are so close together."

"Hang on," Aletha interrupted. "Does this have anything to do with my theory from earlier on?"

James groaned as Peter and Evanie nodded. "How many theories are travelling around here?"

"Hold it—what earlier theory?" asked Sirius.

"You look better," commented Lily.

"Thank the Healer," Sirius replied, gesturing towards Aletha, "but still. _What_ other theory?"

"I'd like to know as well," said Danger, "seeing as most of these theories do seem to be about us. Meaning Remus and me."

"How could we ever doubt that?" asked Aletha rhetorically. "Anyway," she carried on hastily after Danger shot her a dirty look, "when you—er—'fell asleep', Danger, we cast a couple of diagnosis spells on you to see what was going on. The most basic ones just said that you were asleep, but the more advanced version gave a bit more insight, because they showed not only your physical health, but that of your soul, mind, magical core, etc. What I could tell from that spell was that your soul had taken a heavy blow, and I guessed it may have gone inwards and done something."

"Soul is the home of love and emotion, right?" asked Danger.

"Basically."

Danger recited something under her breath, then nodded again. "Makes sense. Carry on."

"Yes ma'am." Aletha rolled her eyes again before carrying on. "The diagnostic spell also showed that your magical core had expanded, quite a bit, to almost double the amount of raw magic you'd expect in a normal adult." Sirius' eyes expanded and Danger gave a slight gasp. "But the thing is, the magic that you'd just gained didn't register properly as normal magic—sort of… _special_ magic."

"Like my connection to Remus," supplied Danger.

"Yes," said Peter, "and our theory fills in a few of the holes in the original theory, such as why the magical core expanded and why the extra magic came out as 'special' magic."

"Carry on," said James. "I'm intrigued, now."

"You would be," Lily muttered under her breath.

"So," said Evanie. "Latents, who experience a rather nasty shock, have been documented to have had an… explosion of magic, you could say, which is literally their soul going inwards and crashing into their magical core. If they were a normal muggle, then nothing would happen, because their magical core is empty. Same with normal wizards, because our magical cores are already at their full potential. But latents…they have a magical core, but it's packed away tightly."

"Think of our magical core as a box," clarified Peter, "with our magic filling all of it. Latents have the same amount, or roughly the same, seeing as everyone's magic is different, but it's all bundled away in a tiny corner of the box, so it seems to be empty. When the soul crashes into it, the bounds that have been keeping it in the tiny speck in the corner are broken, and the magic rushes into the box."

"Boom," James said helpfully.

"But I'm not a latent," said Danger. "I've always had normal magic before—why should a shock affect me as if I'm a latent?"

"We reckon that you're something like half a latent," explained Evanie. "Your magic was half unleashed, but it still had some potential."

"Letha," Lily said, having had a thought, "that diagnostic spell—it only measures the size of the magic in the magical core, right? Not the potential, or the actual size of the 'box'?"

Aletha nodded. "There's a rough set of boundaries for the magical core size, which is probably the representative of this box. If the magic registered in the spell is down low, that's what we'd call magical exhaustion. Oh, and the spell can tell what type of magic is there as well. Adult magicians have honed and refined magic, because they've studied and understand their magic. Young witches and wizards who haven't gone to school yet have somewhat wild and restless magic, so when they're upset or excited, their soul goes inwards and their restless magic comes out."

"That's accidental magic, then, isn't it?" asked Sirius.

"I'd say so."

The points connected in Lily's mind. "So Danger, you're like an anomaly in the wizarding world. Your magical core was probably pretty big to start off with, but because you're sort of half a latent, the magic only fills about half of it. And so, the boundaries keeping your magic in that half of the 'box' are rather thin, so when your soul was excited…"

"Boom," James said again.

Lily rolled her eyes.

* * *

"One more thing," Danger said. "Letha, you said that the spell could tell what kind of magic there is in the magical core, and that the extra magic I've suddenly got is different. What kind of different?"

Aletha considered this for a while. "I didn't really think about it then," she said. "Do you mind if I cast that spell again now?"

"Go ahead."

The other five people in the room watched as Aletha raised her wand and pointed it at Danger, muttering an incantation under her breath. She felt a small snatch of air inside her, and resisted the urge to shiver.

That feels weird.

You don't say.

"It's like the restless magic that little children have," Aletha was saying, "but still slightly more wild."

"We figured that to be because the magic that you already have has matured, so the extra has to manifest itself differently," said Peter.

Remus and Danger considered this. "I guess it makes sense," she said after a few moments.

**There's something bothering you about this,** Remus said as the other six started talking amongst themselves.

Danger sighed. **We need to figure out the parameters of this connection,** she said instead of replying, **so I know whether to convince you that you're wrong or to get the idea across that I don't want to talk about it.**

**We can discuss that later. What's wrong?**

**About that whole 'magical anomaly' thing…it just reminded me of something a while back.**

**What?**

**Well…my mum, she had a little trouble with me. Giving birth, I mean. The doctors said I should have been a stillborn, but something happened. When I was being born. I'm not even sure what it was, but obviously, here I am. They called it an anomaly, and I don't even know what they were referring to. It could have been the monitoring machines that messed up, or it could genuinely be something to do with me.**

She could feel Remus' smile across the bond. **Miracle baby, are you?**

Danger snorted. **If you're expecting me to walk on water, you'll have to tell me the incantation first.**

She suddenly felt the emotions on the other side of the bond grow more serious. **About walking and water.**

**Ah. Yes. Sirius.**

**We need to talk with him, later. I was planning on talking anyway, and letting him grovel for a bit and beg for forgiveness…but I'm not planning on forgiving him for attempting suicide.**

Danger tried to think things through, but found herself lost somewhere between Remus forgiving Sirius for landing him in prison, but not for walking into the lake.

**Life's too complicated and you're too noble for your own good,** she grumbled at him.

**You've said that already.**

**Once more doesn't make any difference.**

"Hey, Danger, Remus," said James' voice, intruding on their thoughts. "You said that you heard a prophecy and spent a good part of your time on the beach talking about it—" he raised his eyebrows in scepticism, before a small slap on the back of his head from Lily told him to stop messing around, "—but you haven't actually told us what it is yet."

"No, we haven't…" Danger trailed off as she caught sight of Evanie, and both she and Remus had an epiphany.

Scarréd maid…

'Wolfish night'—that's me, the wolf, we've already established that 'darkest star' is Sirius—

"Where's your Truth necklace?" Danger asked Aletha now.

Both Sirius and Aletha started. Her hand went into her dressing gown pocket; his went to the back of his neck. When the two emerged, they each held a silver chain, which they then traded.

"Here," said Aletha, holding up the 'Truth' charm.

Danger stared. _Later._

So 'scurrier' is Peter, which leaves…

Danger started giggling. **Oh Merlin's sweet beard…**

Remus started chuckling himself. **They are going quite fast, aren't they…**

* * *

James stared in bewilderment at Danger who was now rolling around on the floor in fits of giggles.

"What's so funny?" he asked, nonplussed. Judging by the looks on the faces of the other five people around him, he wasn't the only one who was confused.

Danger's giggles increased, and she flapped one hand at them, presumably telling them to wait it out. James exchanged a look with Sirius, and shrugged. They all settled back to wait until Danger's fit was over.

All I did was ask about the prophecy…and then she goes and asks about the necklace—why did Aletha have the Star and Sirius the Truth anyway?

Probably some reason he didn't need to know.

The atmosphere in the tunnel was surprisingly cheerful, he had to admit. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but he liked the positive outlook of the seven of them and he wasn't going to ruin it by thinking morbid thoughts. Such as how he and Sirius needed to talk sometime in the future…

James pushed the thought away firmly.

Danger was finally getting herself under control, and she sat up, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.

Wait—is something different with her eyes?

Not that I frequently stare into her eyes, but I swear they never had those blue whirlpools in them…

"If you've _quite_ finished?" asked Sirius.

Danger nodded, and cleared her throat.

"Now, before I reveal the prophecy," she said, her eyes dancing with mischief, "I think someone's got an announcement to make."

"Eh?" Peter looked questioningly at her. "What announcement?"

"You'll see." Both Peter and Evanie were staring at her now, probably thinking she'd lost her mind.

_I think she has, anyway…_What_ announcement? Who's got what announcement to make?_

He looked around their group of people, waiting for someone to own up to their 'announcement'.

Not Peter and/or Evanie, considering the way they're staring at Danger, is it Aletha? No, she looks as confused as they do, Sirius looks as confused as he normally does, it's not Danger or Remus, she would have said it by now, and what announcement would Lily—

He caught sight of green eyes staring at him, and felt like acquainting the palm of his hand to his forehead.

Or would that be reacquainting?

"How do you know?" he asked Danger rather stupidly. Her eyes were definitely twinkling—or was that the blue in them?—and Lily, slightly to his right, raised an eyebrow at him.

"Know _what?_" asked Sirius loudly.

"Why don't you ask James?" said Danger.

Four pairs of expectant eyes turned upon him.

"Erm…"_How to explain…I don't know! I'm not good at this sort of thing…Er…_He turned to Lily. _Help?_

Lily rolled her eyes. "For Merlin's sake…" she said exasperatedly, bringing out her wand and cancelling the invisibility glamour first on her own ring, then on James'. She held up his left hand in her right, then brought her other hand up in front of his, so the two rings were visible. "This idiot asked me to marry him, okay?"

Silence.

_Sirius and Letha's eyes can't get any wider…_"Not exactly the most elegant methods of announcing," he muttered into Lily's ear.

"At the rate you were going, the method of announcing would have been moot," she muttered back.

"I _KNEW_ IT!" Peter shouted, unfreezing and punching the air, then falling backwards onto the floor, roaring with laughter.

Danger started giggling again, just as Aletha thawed and started squealing. James winced at the high-pitched feminine sound right beside his ear, and found Lily being towed off to a few metres away by a rapidly speaking Aletha. Evanie, after vain attempts to calm Peter down, went to join them.

_And Sirius is still staring at me like a gormless idiot…_

"Erm…Padfoot?" He waved his right hand in front of Sirius' face. "Earth to Padfoot, are you receiving, over?"

Grey eyes blinked, and their owner shook his head. "Hey Prongs. Am I dreaming, or did Lily just say that you proposed to her?"

"Erm…"

"That's what I thought." Sirius' head dropped. "You've got it bad, brother."

"I know."

* * *

Remus chuckled in his mind, listening to Danger's endless giggles at the other end of the connection. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was lying down in a bed, and that there were people talking around him, but ever since he had woken up, he had mostly been 'living' in Danger's mind.

Would you mind carrying a message to James for me, before you go off to the girl corner?

What is it?

Tell him that I commend him for growing up, then remember every detail of his reaction.

He could sense the mischievous smile on Danger's face. **Consider it done. Where are you going?**

**Escaping from the girl conversation. And proving to my dad and McGonagall that I'm alive.**

Danger hesitated slightly, and the serious side of the situation struck them both again. **Dammit, I wish there was more I could do!**

**I can talk with you lot. That's more than enough already.**

**Okay.** Danger sounded unsure.

Look, go celebrate with the happy couple, please. I'll come back later.

All right. But I'm probably going to spy, anyway…

Remus sighed inwardly. **I won't try to stop you. Now, _please_ go and be happy?**

**If you insist, Lord King of the World…**

Their connection dimmed, and Remus came back to his own body.

"…should have woken up a good half an hour or so ago. You say he's definitely awake?" That was Professor McGonagall's voice.

"That's what the spell's saying. He's awake, but probably still dreaming, or something similar. Could he be in shock?" A female voice, but not one he knew.

"No." That was his dad. "Remus wouldn't go into shock, not even over something like this."

"It could just be that my diagnosis spell isn't working right," said the second voice. "I've never been good at those."

There were a few moments of silence, save for the rustlings of robes as their owners sat down.

"I'm sorry, what was your name?" asked the unknown female voice.

"John. John Lupin," his dad replied.

"John Lupin. Right. I guess I should inform you the same rules about running in the corridors that apply to Hogwarts apply to the Ministry?"

"What?" Remus opened one eye in time to see his father blush furiously. "Oh…erm…whoops."

Remus turned over in bed. "Huh?" he said groggily as he sat up.

"Hey, you're awake," said his dad, turning to him with the faintest tinges of pink still on his cheek. "How're you doing?"

"Okay…I guess…"

He looked past his dad to see Professor McGonagall smiling slightly at the scene—_McGonagall? Smiling?—_and a lively woman, around late thirties to forties, Remus judged, with straight blonde hair and wearing ministry robes, who was laughing.

"Don't worry," she was saying, "I won't hold it against you for almost knocking me over in the corner. After all, I'm sure that there are plenty of people who run in the corridors at Hogwarts anyway."

"Of course," said McGonagall dryly.

"Anyway, Remus, glad you're awake. I'm Felicity Davidson, I'm normally with Wizarding Family Services but I'm over here at Magic Creature for a few months because we're overstaffed and they're understaffed."

From the animals that talk to the ones that don't, is it?

That was quick of you. Now hush.

Danger's presence retreated into the back of his mind again.

"I'm officially here to read out the charges against you," Felicity was saying, "which are a charge of assault on Severus Snape and one of endangerment towards minors."

"What? By being at Hogwarts? But he's a student…" John trailed off.

"I'm sorry," said Felicity. "But Remus is seventeen, and so by wizarding standards, an adult."

Remus heard some hissing at from the back of his mind.

Dammit, we hadn't thought of that…

"Mrs. Davidson," he said over Danger's cursing, "you said that you were 'officially' here to read out the charges. What are you here to do, unofficially?"

She chuckled. "You're sharp, I'll give you that," she said. "First, though, call me Felicity. 'Mrs. Davidson' still makes me look around for my mother-in-law. To answer your question, though…" her voice lost its humour. "I'm here to tell you that I'll be backing you, at your trial—it's going to be Friday week, by the way. I've never been a prejudiced person, and I'm Muggle-born, so I wasn't raised with horror stories of werewolves. And from what I've seen so far of you…" she looked him over, "you appear to be pretty human."

Remus felt profound gratitude. Felicity's scent was confirming her words to be genuine, without any trace of condescending or joking. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." She smiled at him.

It's nice to know that there's at least one guaranteed fan in the audience.

Excuse me. Make that eight guaranteed fans.

It's nice to know that there's at least eight guaranteed fans in the audience.

What about your dad and McGonagall and Dumbledore—

Remus mentally held his hands up in surrender, laughing. **Okay, I get your point.**

**You're in a better mood.**

**Being given a vote of confidence by an adult who's not patronising me will do that.**

**I can tell.**

"Remus?"

"Dad?"

John Lupin smiled. "I'm proud of you, son."

Remus smiled back. "Thanks, Dad." He put his left arm around his father, and soon they were hugging again.

Aww…hey, you didn't say that you were chained to the bed—

I'd rather not be reminded, thanks.

Sorry.

"Felicity?" His dad called to the witch, who was having a conversation with Professor McGonagall. Remus turned around to look as well. "I just wanted to say…erm…sorry for almost running into you, earlier."

She laughed, unaware of John's blush. "Don't worry about it. I'd almost forgotten already." She turned back to McGonagall. "So, how's my daughter doing?"

"Very well. She's one of the most promising third years I've ever had…"

"Are you okay, dad?" Remus asked, over the chattering witches.

"I'm okay, cub."

**Status report update. Peter has finally stopped laughing, Aletha is finally letting Evanie coo over Lily's ring, and Sirius is bemoaning the early loss of James' freedom.**

**Sounds like fun.**

**Oh, it is, believe me. Want to come back?**

**Why not. Wait a minute. **"Dad?" he said out loud. "I'm still a bit tired…"

"Okay, son. Rest." His dad stood up, letting him lie back down in bed again.

"I'll see you when I wake up?"

"Of course."

Remus closed his eyes. **Incoming.**

**Received.**

He mentally rolled his eyes. **I'm not a package, you know…**

**You act like you're one.**

He could sense the impish smile on her face as his mind raced through various definitions of the last few lines of their conversation. **Anyway,** he said hastily, **have you told them the prophecy yet?**

**No. They're all a bit…preoccupied.**

Remus took a look around the passageway through Danger's eyes. **Yes, I can see.**

Lily, Aletha and Evanie were having a high-speed conversation about what seemed to be the colour scheme of the flowers for the wedding, and Peter was telling the other two boys exactly how he'd figured out that James had proposed to Lily.

**Do you think that they'll first ask us how we knew, or do we have to remind them?** he asked.

Give it another couple of minutes, then we'll get their attention.

In the meantime…remember March, around two years ago?

Erm…Oh, you mean outside the Shrieking Shack?

Yes. You were teasing me all along, weren't you?

I may have been.

"Self-congratulatory and completely fictitious tales of my romantic prowess" indeed.

I have to admit, it was fun seeing your reactions to me talking about the Shrieking Shack.

He sent her an image of rolling his eyes. **I guess I'll forgive you for that. But there's one thing for which I will never forgive you.**

**Oh? And what might that be?**

**Does this bring back any recollections? **He threw his mind-voice up into a falsetto. **"Are you gay?"**

Danger burst out laughing. **I'm either going to protest that I do not sound like that, wish that I could hit you right now, or say that your face was hilarious.**

**Why don't you do all three?**

**Your face was hilarious. I really wish I could hit you right now, and I do not sound like that!**

Remus mentally rolled his eyes again. **Literalist. **

**And proud of it, too.**

"Danger, Moony," James voice interrupted them. "How _did_ you know about this?"

Danger applauded him. "Huzzah, James. We were wondering when someone would ask us that."

"Was it the prophecy?" asked Evanie as the other girls came back towards them.

"Yup." Danger nodded. "Should I recite it or write it down?"

**Write it down,** Remus said while most of the other Marauders agreed with him.

**Second time I've had to do this, **Danger grumbled silently as she took the transfigured parchment, quill and ink that Lily supplied.

Quit complaining.

Yessir.

The passageway was silent for a few moments, save for the scratching of quill on parchment.

Though virtue is its own reward,

Your loyal love's a two-edged sword;

It brings you pain, and wild might

Which helps you end the wolfish night.

Though fool he was, and fool still be,

The darkest star deserves his plea.

Forgive, move past, but do not let

Yourselves or him the truth forget.

These four, yourself and mentioned three,

Must speak the words to set you free,

To bond you, with a solemn oath,

To those who now have plighted troth,

And scurrier and scarréd maid,

For only thus you gain great aid.

The royal stars will help you hide

The strength the words to you supplied,

And thus this tangle, tightly spun,

Ends better than it had begun.

**Look right to you? **Danger asked.

Pretty much.

"Okay, done," she said aloud after blowing the ink dry. She put the parchment in the middle of the makeshift circle that had formed, allowing those who hadn't been reading over her shoulder while she wrote to look over the lines. "We've figured that the first four lines are about me and my power boost, the next four were to forgive Sirius for his stupidity, the next six described something that would become clear to me when it's needed, and we didn't get round to the last four, although the final couplet looks pretty promising."

"I see the meaning behind your questions now," Lily said, after a few more moments of silence. "It's quite clever, using the meanings of our names so it doesn't have to refer to us twice…" she stopped short. "When did you have this prophecy, Danger?"

Erm… I was falling through the whirlpools of random colour and sound for quite a while, now that I think of it, and I might literally have been unconscious for a while before the dreams started…

Shall we say within half an hour of your first losing consciousness, then?

Danger repeated this estimate out loud. James and Lily looked at each other.

"I'd say it was around two or three minutes in each dormitory," said Lily. "So that'd be around twenty minutes…"

"Cutting it very fine," said James, "but it could just happen. After all, the poem says 'who have _now_ plighted troth'—it could even've been right on the 'now'."

He's right.

"So," Danger said, stretching her arms. "Who's up for more poetry deciphering?"

Sirius groaned. "I never was much good at that stuff. My poetry skills extend to something like…" He thought for a moment.

_James Potter was a guy with messy black hair, _

_Which never laid down because of his bear. _

_Mr. Pookums was his name, _

_He could never tame, _

_James' hair, which is really not fair._

Utter silence.

After a few seconds, it was broken by Lily.

"_Mr. Pookums?_" she asked James disbelievingly.

Her fiancé turned a bright red. "Traitor," he muttered to his best friend.

Lily bit both her lips so hard that they turned white. Evanie had both her hands over her mouth, and Peter had turned away, his back shaking. Aletha was biting the sleeve of her dressing gown. Sirius was still, amazingly, looking innocent. Danger was holding her breath.

**You might be interested to know,** Remus remarked idly, **that this is the same bear that James is unable to sleep without, as we demonstrated last year on a Saturday morning in the Great Hall.**

"Whatever he just told you, don't say it aloud," James told her sharply.

Danger nodded frantically. Remus could tell that the task of holding her breath had become doubly difficult with his remark, triply so after James'. He felt like rolling his eyes.

Breathe, Danger.

The moment she opened her mouth, the inevitable happened.

She exploded into laughter, and it wasn't long before the rest of the Marauders followed.

Remus sighed blissfully.

Laughter was good. He just wished it wasn't so obviously their way of putting off what was definitely coming soon.

* * *

Poppy Pomfrey hadn't been so harried in a long time, and she didn't like it. She had taken the position at Hogwarts as an easy job for before she retired, thinking that the worst things she'd have to deal with were Quidditch injuries.

Over the years, though, she had grown to love Hogwarts' Hospital Wing. She didn't even know what was so appealing, but she had long since abandoned the notions of leaving after half a dozen years.

She had never denied the fact that she had a 'mother hen' nature. She would cluck over the children, chiding them and fixing them up, then sending them away with warnings that she didn't what to see them again. The wise ones took her advice. The reckless ones never did.

Remus Lupin, when he came along, had been the one who was most constantly under her mothering wing. She had become somewhat of an aunt to him, and she was there for him the few months after his mother's death, providing her shoulder and ear for him when his friends weren't around. It was hard to believe that such a kind young boy could be a werewolf.

Poppy looked at the clock in the office, seeing that the five minutes required for the potion she had just administered to take effect had passed. She stood up, stretching her back—_I'm really too old for this_— and hurried back out into the wing.

The boy was doing well—or, at least, relatively well considering what had happened. He was nearly out of the woods—in fact, it hinged mostly on the results of the potion. If it had taken adequate effect on him he was stable. If not… well, she'd just work on him for another half hour or so.

She cast a diagnostic on her patient, and smiled in relief. The potion had worked, and now it was only a matter of time for him to wake up.

Genuinely glad, she cleared away the empty bottled lying around as well as some of the spillover blood before running a final few tests of him, making sure that everything was on the mend. Seeing nothing alarming, she headed back to her office for a moment of much-needed rest and ruminations.

Severus Snape was going to survive, although he was definitely going to have to live with lycanthropy. Some may not consider that to be a real life, but since she had met Remus Lupin, especially after they had become so close, she knew that werewolves could still have a real life, if they so chose.

She just hoped that Severus did choose so.

* * *

"…and then," said James, red faced from laughter, "I made it so that every time they said the word 'green', a green teddy bear would appear on their head, every time they said the word 'pink', a pink teddy bear would appear on their backs, but every time they said the word 'dot', a white teddy bear with green polka dots would appear on their—"

"Thanks, James," said Sirius loudly, over the laughter of the other six people in the passageway.

**Is that true?** Danger asked Remus privately, feeling the same embarrassment that Sirius was probably feeling coming over the bond.

**Yes,** he admitted reluctantly. **I have no idea where he learned the spell, and he didn't take it off until we'd both apologised for the Mr. Pookums prank.**

Danger's laughter redoubled.

"But how often would you say those words anyway?" Aletha asked when she'd recovered. "They're not precisely everyday, and it's easy enough to avoid saying them…"

"You've never been in on one of the Marauder prank planning sessions, have you?" asked Peter. "All it takes is a sentence like 'Hey, let's drive the Slytherins dotty by changing all their green décor to bright pink', which is a model sentence that we use quite a lot…"

The rest of the Marauders enjoyed this image for several minutes.

"Do you remember when we'd all got our Apparition licenses?" asked Sirius when it was over. "We spent the whole day afterwards Apparating round to each others' houses and leaving a prank…"

"Yes, I do," Peter replied tartly, "and my poor dear mother was none too pleased when she walked into a pit of wet sand that had an illusion of a carpet over it."

James and Sirius both assumed expressions of perfect innocence. Danger, along with all three other girls, raised an eyebrow.

**Erm, for once, they're being perfectly honest,** admitted a voice in her head. **That was me.**

Danger immediately started coughing to try and cover her laughter. Peter turned wearily to her.

"It was Moony, wasn't it?"

**Go ahead and confess my sins,** Remus sent, mock-irritably, when she continued to cough. **It was going to come out sooner or later.**

She only had time for a nod before howling in laughter, quickly followed by everybody else.

"Talking of Apparition," said Evanie when they'd recovered for a third time, "have I ever told you the story of when my dad had an accident?"

"Is this the one where—" Danger mimed shivering. Evanie nodded, grinning.

"What is this?" asked James, looking interested.

"Well, my parents were on a mountain hiking trip," Evanie started. "It was their honeymoon, and dad was in a rather silly mood. When they were having a break—this is only a small-ish mountain, by the way—he decided to sneak up behind mum by Apparating."

Danger stifled giggles, having heard the story before.

"When he was imagining his destination, though, something went a bit haywire. It was winter, it was on a mountain, and rather cold. Somewhere along the line, he exaggerated the amount of snow and the height of the mountain." Evanie paused. "When he finished the apparition, there was no-one in sight, it was a lot colder than it was and he was up to his knees in snow."

"Where was he?" asked Lily, fascinated.

Evanie had to pause to allow for giggles. "Mount Everest."

Silence met her words.

"You're kidding."

Evanie shook her head, visibly fighting giggles.

"How'd he get out of that one?" Aletha wanted to know.

"After a couple of moments of being bewildered, he finally got his wand and cast a warming charm, plus a bubble-head charm, because he was pretty high up, then imagined his destination _very_ clearly, and apparated back to mum, almost suffering from frostbite."

The following laughter was cut off by a loud rumbling from Sirius' stomach.

"You're not hungry already, are you?" Aletha exclaimed.

"I'm a growing boy!" he protested.

She snorted. "That excuse won't work for much longer," she warned. "Once you've stopped growing, you'll need to think up new ones."

"He is slightly justified," Lily said over Sirius' grumbling, looking at her watch. "It's breakfast time, after all."

"Already?" Evanie said, surprised.

"Yup."

"Can we just go _eat_, already?" whined Sirius.

"Excuse me," Aletha cut in with her most professional voice. "_You_ are not going anywhere, Sirius Black."

Pause.

"Erm, Letha?" Peter interjected. "It's not the best idea to keep Padfoot from his food."

"I can see that," remarked Aletha, looked bemusedly at Sirius' face. "But you're still not going anywhere. Quite apart from Healer's orders, you couldn't walk too far if you tried."

Sirius scowled for a few more seconds before admitting defeat and slumping backwards, sulking.

"I guess it's a case of sending people down to the Great Hall to collect breakfast for all of us up here, then," said Lily. "Me and James will go, if you want."

"But I was just getting comfortable," her fiancé whined. Lily _looked_ at him. "I'm coming," he said hastily.

Danger, Aletha and Evanie giggled.

"Letha and Danger probably shouldn't go," said Peter. "They're the only ones still in their nightclothes."

**I am?** She looked down at herself. **Oh. I am.**

Remus chuckled over their bond. **James, Sirius and Peter probably never changed into their pyjamas in the first place, Evanie changed when she was in her dorm, and Lily grabbed her stuff some time when doing the rounds. Only you and Letha never got round to it.**

**Of course.** Danger rolled her eyes good-naturedly. **And _how_ did you work all of that out?**

**Simple logic and common sense. You may have heard of it.**

**Prat.**

"So me and Lily and Peter and Evanie are going down to get breakfast?" James was saying. "Rather a lot of us, isn't it?"

"Yes, well I think that it's fine." Lily's voice had a bit of a warning tone in it.

Peter and Evanie had obviously caught on.

"That's fine with us," said Peter. "Shall we go, my lady?" he said, standing up and bowing to Evanie, extending a hand to help her up.

"Idiot." She slapped him lightly on his head, ignoring his hand, and stood up on her own.

"Fine." Peter stalked away in high dudgeon, turning back at the entranceway. "Coming?"

"Yes." Lily got up, dragging James with her, as Peter opened the back of the mirror. "We'll be back within about half an hour."

"See you."

Evanie walked through the mirror, and it sealed off again behind her.

"Well," said Danger. **Why am I getting the feeling that they're trying to get us to talk?**

**They probably are.** The two of them looked at Sirius, who was looking at Danger apprehensively. Aletha had backed off somewhat, leaving them to their discussion. **And I think Sirius and Aletha got the same feeling.**

**Okay.** Danger sighed. **Here goes.** "This is the situation," she said aloud, shifting herself so she sat more directly in front of Sirius. "Remus, when he was told about what you did last night, may or may not have passed out from shock, because I'm pretty sure that it was part of my magic getting him unconscious. Either way, he didn't like what you did. Neither did I. However, he seems to be prepared to forgive you for that, and I won't bother repeating his stupidly noble reasons, while I will take a bit more convincing." She finished the sentence, looking at him expectedly.

Sirius had been wincing throughout the small speech. "I'm sorry," he said. "And I know that it's not nearly enough to be said. That was the dumbest thing I've ever done in my entire life, and I've done a lot of dumb things—"

"Too right," snorted Aletha quietly. The other two (or three, rather) pretended not to hear her.

"—but that was by far and away the worst. I didn't know what I was thinking—I don't think I _was_ thinking—and I'm not going to grovel for forgiveness and say that it was the alcohol. I guess I shouldn't even have been drinking in the first place, and I should've thought more about the fact that I was trusted with this, and I shouldn't've been stupid enough to tell Snape and nearly get him killed."

Danger frowned slightly. **How much do you know about Snape?**

**Only that he's in the hospital wing, definitely infected with lycanthropy, and that Madame Pomfrey's trying to save his life,** Remus replied bitterly. **You?**

**Just that he's critically injured. We need to ask about him later,** she said, as a wave of horror passed through both of them.

**Yes,** Remus said, shivering.

"Okay," Danger said, trying to shake off the shivers that had returned after a brief hiatus. "Explain this lake business to me."

Sirius cringed again. "I'd been in the dungeons," he said, staring at the floor. "James'd yelled at me, Letha'd yelled at me, and she'd chucked her Truth necklace at me, saying she didn't want it any more and telling me to go jump in the lake."

Oh Merlin…he took her seriously. No pun intended.

"I had a small self-pity party going on, then I went back up to Gryffindor Tower, gave the Star necklace to her—"

"I'm missing something here. _Gave _it back to her? I can't see that happening."

"I was asleep," Aletha volunteered. "Lily charmed me."

"All right." **Add another item to go on the 'Must Ask About Later' list.**

"—gave her the Star necklace because she didn't want the Truth one, then went outside, thinking that none of you needed a stupid friend like me, and walked in the lake. Next thing I knew—" Sirius broke off, looking at Aletha strangely.

"It's called mouth-to-mouth resuscitation," explained Aletha, obviously trying to ignore the blush on her cheeks. "It's what Muggles do when someone stops breathing."

Otherwise known as the Kiss of Life, but let's not embarrass Letha too much. Yet.

"You thought that we didn't need a stupid friend like you," Danger repeated, getting back to the topic at hand.

"Erm… yeah?"

"You mean the type of stupid friend who cares so little about secrets that he'd willingly tell one to an enemy just to get him killed by the hand—or paw, or teeth—of one of your best friends?"

Sirius winced.

"You're right," said Danger, disgusted. "We don't need a friend stupid enough to think that we'd be better off if he'd committed suicide."

Well said.

You're the one who's not forgiving him for the lake. I'm not forgiving him for the secret.

Sirius was looking genuinely guilty. "If there's a word fifty times more powerful than 'sorry', I'd be amplifying that by a hundred and saying it over and over again."

Danger sighed. "Look," she said, grabbing the parchment and pointing out the second stanza. "'_Forgive, move past, but do not let / Yourselves or him the truth forget._' I can tell you now, Sirius, that if it wasn't for this prophecy, neither of us would be forgiving you for anything right now. As it stands, I still think we both owe you a set of hexes."

"Can't you get it over with now?" he asked, clearing accepting that it was inevitable, but still terrified of the prospect.

Danger smirked evilly. "Quite apart from the fact that you're in no shape to have various different curses and hexes thrown at you, there is nowhere near enough space in here."

* * *

Peter grinned at James all the way through two flights of stairs. 

James, in the end, got fed up. "Yes, Wormtail?"

Peter grinned at him and Lily, whose hand he was holding.

Lily rolled her eyes. "By the way, Peter, what did you mean by 'I knew it', back in the passageway?"

"I'd figured out what you were going to do." He was still grinning.

"How?"

Peter tapped his nose, smiling smugly. "Guess."

"Merlin," said Evanie, exasperated. "This idiot is just saying that he saw you, with a ring box, in your dorm, with Lily, with Silencing Charms. Even _he_ could've put the pieces together, but he's just being happy because this is the first time he's been intelligent enough to complete a puzzle."

"You're a great help to my self-esteem," Peter huffed.

"I know."

The two continued to banter as they walked along ahead, leaving James and Lily to themselves.

He smiled down at her. "You're so beautiful," he said.

Lily sighed happily and leant her head onto his shoulder, the two being the very picture of a newly-engaged couple.

"Did you get the feeling, back there, in the passageway," she started saying, but James took over.

"That it felt wrong to be having so much fun? Yes."

She sighed, less happily. "I thought so."

"But there was nothing else we could do, really," James continued. "They say that laughter is the cure to everything, and while it's not quite 'everything', laughter does help people from dropping into a depression. Hopefully, when we get back, Danger and Sirius and Moony will have talked it out."

"There's a reason Danger has that name."

James winced. "I know. But, now looking back already, I'm hoping that the positive session mellowed them out slightly, and they're talking with at least some level of maturity."

"You're making this up as you go along," Lily said.

"Yes," James admitted. "But it's true."

"I guess so."

* * *

Alicia Davidson picked at her breakfast. For some, the sight would have been proof that she wasn't eating properly and had an eating problem, but her friends knew that the few times she was at the table, she would eat ravenously and declare that food for the body was food for the mind.

So Alicia picking at her food wasn't a normal occurrence at all.

_Something weird is going on,_ she thought. Something had happened, that morning. She didn't know what and she didn't like that.

_There's something wrong with everything. Half of the staff aren't here—Dumbledore, McGonagall and Slughorn, for starters—and the rest of them look like…well, they don't look happy. And then there was that thing with the windows; I know that Lily said it was because someone had an accident in the common room, but who is powerful enough to blast out _all_ of the windows in the Tower?_

_And, for that matter, why did Lily and James have to take control of that? Why weren't the teachers involved at all?_

She looked at the High Table. All of the teachers looked worried, mostly, but it wasn't the sort of not-happiness that she would associate with windows being blown out of Gryffindor Tower. It was more serious than that.

Her mind rolled back round to what had originally been bothering her.

Lily Evans said she would be able to talk with me later. I think that the sooner I can talk with her, the sooner I'll be able to understand what's going on.

She looked over Gryffindor table. Lily wasn't here yet—in fact, she noticed, frowning, none of her friends were, either, or the others who called themselves the 'Marauders'…

Oh. I spoke too soon.

She had just seen Lily entering the Great Hall next to James, and at least two of the other 'Marauders'.

Here goes nothing…

* * *

They'd just entered the Hall and were making their way over to Gryffindor table when Lily was accosted by Alicia.

"Lily, can we talk? Privately?" she said, trying to smile.

She's not normally this agitated.

"Of course," Lily replied, smiling warmly at the girl. "Will it be okay just outside the Hall?"

Alicia nodded distractedly.

"I'll be right there."

"That's Alicia Davidson, right?" James said in her ear as the younger girl walked away. "What's up?"

"I don't know," Lily said, frowning. "She's normally so bubbly. You'll be okay getting breakfast, right?"

James laughed. "How hard can it be?"

"Knowing you?" Lily smiled. "See you later, James."

She leant upwards and kissed him on the lips, prompting a whistle or two from the students in the audience, before walking after Alicia with a wave.

Alicia was standing outside the doors to the Great Hall, examining the pattern on the doorframe. She jumped when Lily spoke from behind her.

"What did you need to talk about?"

Alicia whirled around, rubbing her right thumbnail with her left thumb, before forcibly pulling her hands apart and putting them by her side. "This morning," she said firmly. "After you came for the first time. I was looking out of the window."

Lily froze.

"I saw Aletha Freeman, who was only wearing her pyjamas and dressing gown, and Evanie Mead running out towards the lake, then Peter Pettigrew appeared on the bank of the lake. Aletha dived in the lake, during which time Peter disappeared again. A few minutes later, he was running out of the front doors with you and James. You were still in nightclothes as well. Aletha was pulling Sirius Black, who was almost drowned, out of the lake, and then revived him."

Lily's mind was in numb shock. _We'd completely forgotten about the fact that people might be looking out of the windows,_ she thought dizzily. _We'd completely overlooked the fact…_

Alicia was still looking at her, determined. "What's going on?"

* * *

**Author Notes:**  
Ha! Who was expecting that? Conspiracy theories, gasps and other normal reviews welcome! 


	7. The Daily Prophet

**A/N:** Okay, new chapter. Eight months hiatus, but hey. :-D Thanks to Anne for beta'ing, as usual.

A little thing to say: I know that there are people who don't like this story for various reasons, and that's fine with me. Back button's near the top of the screen, on the left. (Wouldn't this be a bad time to get my left and right mixed up?) For those who are interested, there's an A/N at the end of this chapter addressing a few of the issues you might have. If, for some reason, you don't like this story and are still reading it, it's probably worth taking a look at said A/N. Be warned, though, it's rather long. Blame the time, it's one in the morning when I'm writing this.

**Disclaimer: **I'd love to say that this was mine, all MINE, and NOT Jo Rowling's and Anne Walsh's, MWAHAHAHEEHIHEEHAHEHIHI!-- but my mummy taught me not to lie. So it's not mine. :-(

* * *

Chapter 7: The Daily Prophet

_Daily Prophet, Wednesday 26 January 1977_

_**WEREWOLF ATTACK AT HOGWARTS**_

_**Severus Snape, 17, at the brink of death**_

_By Ben Everett_

_Last night, known to few, was a Full Moon. Most were blissfully unaware of the fact, and those who did gave it little consideration._

_Unless they were a werewolf._

_One such werewolf is Remus Lupin, 17, who we can now reveal has been a werewolf since he was four years old; a dangerous, sub-human animal, and yet he still attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for nearly seven years. It is as of yet unknown how Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of the school, could have allowed such an atrocity to happen, for it has led to a tragedy last night._

_Severus Snape was merely taking a walk before he returned to his dormitory when he came across Lupin in his transformed state, the werewolf ferocious and hungry for meat. Circumstances are unclear as to how he escaped, but Mr. Snape is now in the Hogwarts' hospital wing, fighting for his life. Lupin was caught and immediately brought to the Ministry upon his retransformation, where he will be charged for assault and endangerment of minors._

_This is a shocking story for the world to be waking up to, and brings serious doubts to Dumbledore's handling of Hogwarts School._

_"Werewolves are dangerous," a Department of Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures says bluntly. "There's no way around that fact—they are filthy creatures who are no longer human, and should not be allowed to intermingle with us ordinary folk. Having one at Hogwarts is a danger to our children."_

_Lupin's trial will be held on Friday 4th February, a little more than a week's time. Whether or not Mr. Snape survives his ordeal will make a great impact on Lupin's sentence._

_The _Daily Prophet_ will be following this story avidly, so stay tuned for events._

_For more information on lycanthropy, turn to page 2. For brief backgrounds of Remus Lupin and Severus Snape, turn to page 3. For a detailed assessment of Albus Dumbledore's management of Hogwarts, turn to page 4. For information on werewolf laws, turn to page 7._

* * *

Owls fluttered in through the windows of the Great Hall of Hogwarts School. 

James Potter looked up at the sound from Gryffindor table, letting his eyes roll over the great wave of black and brown and grey owls, watching them circle around the room before they found the respective recipients of the mail. The students were laughing and chatting, just like any other day. They didn't know that today was any different.

If it had been a normal day, he and Sirius and Remus and Peter would already be in the Hall, talking loudly over breakfast. Lily, Letha and Evanie would probably be sitting around close by, and Remus' eyes would be drifting over to Danger every so often if she were there…

No, that wasn't right. If it were a normal morning after the Full Moon, Remus would be in the hospital wing. Depending on the wolf's mood the night before, the other three would either still be sleeping upstairs, in the hospital wing with him, or blearily sitting down at the table and falling asleep in their porridge.

James was too preoccupied with his thoughts to notice that the Hall had gone quiet. Only his owl pecking at his hand brought him back into reality, and he blinked as he realised that something was wrong. He looked for Peter and Evanie, who were surreptitiously collecting the bacon and sausages and eggs like he was subtly gathering pieces of toast, and caught Peter's eye.

"What's going on?" he mouthed, since his hands were full of pieces of toast.

Peter shrugged, then indicated James' owl, which was still pecking at his hands, apparently rather annoyed at being ignored.

James took one look at what the owl carried and groaned.

_Dammit. I'd completely forgotten about that…_ He dumped the toast on the table, in a space between two groups of third and fourth years, untying the cylinder attached to his owl's legs and fishing for a knut in his pocket. He found one just as he unfurled the paper, and was lucky enough that his hand was just above the pouch on his owl's legs anyway, because he almost dropped the paper itself as he caught sight of the headline.

_Darn. Shit. Damn. This is bad._

Whispers were starting to fill the hall, as students recovered from the shock and started discussing the article. James looked around frantically.

_Remus' name isn't exactly unknown around Hogwarts—we're the Marauders, of course they'll know him—and they'll know me and Peter as well, and it's only a matter of time before someone makes the connection and soon we'll get swarmed—_

He grabbed the pile of toast on the table with one hand, squashing it slightly but not caring, and clutching the newspaper in his other hand he caught Evanie's eye this time, motioning with his eyes and head to get _out_ of the hall, fast. She nodded, nudged Peter, and they put the lids on of the boxes they'd been putting food in. The three of them made their way to the back of the hall, hoping that nobody noticed them among the other students who were now talking with each other, shouting at others across the hall and moving around to debate with those in other houses.

"The newspaper?" Peter asked in an undertone as they made their way to the door.

James nodded glumly and handed the _Daily Prophet_ to Peter, who gave the box of bacon and sausages to Evanie and unfurled the paper. The headline and article shared the front-page space only with a large moving picture of a prowling werewolf, probably designed to look threatening.

_Stupid prejudices._

The reached the door and walked out to the Entrance Hall, where James looked around for Lily. He spotted her behind the door with Alicia Davidson, with her back to him.

"Lily?"

Lily whirled around, her face pale and eyes wide. "James!"

"What is it?" James asked worriedly, pushing the toast stack towards Evanie, who was already loaded with boxes. He didn't notice the dirty look she shot at him, while rearranging the piles in her arms and trying not to drop them.

Lily grabbed his arm and hissed in his ear. "We need to talk with Alicia. In private."

James felt his forehead crease in confusion, but when his girlfriend—_fiancée—_used that tone of voice, it was best to obey. "Classroom Nine?" he whispered.

Lily nodded distractedly and turned back to Alicia, who was standing by, a mixture of confusion and determination on her face.

_What's going on?_

James turned back to Peter and Evanie, keeping an eye on Lily and Alicia walking over to the empty classroom.

"Can you take the food back to the passageway?" he muttered. "Lily wants to talk with Alicia, and I think it's kind of important…"

"Okay, sure," Peter said. "Here, it's your newspaper, I'll help Evanie carry the food…"

"You have a wand," James said bluntly.

"So I do," Peter said, "but school rules say we shouldn't cast magic in the hallways."

James raised an eyebrow.

"If we got special permission though, say, from the Head Boy…"

James groaned. "Whatever. Use a featherweight charm, float it in front of you, I don't care."

"Sorry," Evanie said, dumping everything she was holding into Peter's arms instead. "He's in a weird mood."

"I hadn't noticed," James said dryly as he watched Evanie charm the food invisible. "Here," he said, conjuring a few bags. "This way you won't drop it by accident."

"Thanks."

"We'll be back soon, I hope. See you in the tunnel." James hurried off after Lily, while Peter and Evanie made their way up the marble staircase.

He got to Classroom Nine and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Alicia was standing in the middle, now looking slightly nervous, her hands twitching. Lily was standing by the window, looking out, and she hurried over to him when she heard the door close.

"We have a problem," she repeated, whispering in his ear.

"What is it?" he replied in the same tone, looking warily at Alicia.

"She was looking out of the window."

"Wha—" James felt his insides vanish as he caught sight of a small glimmer from the lake out of the window that Lily had just moved away from. "How much did she see?" he heard himself asking.

"From Letha rushing out to Sirius waking up."

"Damn." James hissed, looking over at the third-year. She returned his gaze, determinedly. "Is she trustworthy?"

"I trust her. But James, her mum works at the Ministry—she told me the other day, she was temporarily transferred over to the RCMC…"

James digested the newest nugget of news slowly, thinking it over.

_Okay. Her mother works in the RCMC, at least currently. That potentially means she could have inside information from the Ministry, or she's with the Ministry in their stupid bias against werewolves. She could drop us in with her mother, especially if she saw Wormtail transform out there._

_But, if they __aren't_ prejudiced—not common these days, but there are a few people who don't have the ridiculous were-phobia—she could drop a line in her mum's ear, possibly make life easier for Moony, maybe even get us in to see him. It's nice being able to communicate with him through Danger, but it's not the same, not nearly.

_Okay, that's a bit of a long shot, but it's possible._

"I say she could either be a blessing or a curse," he said quietly in Lily's ear. "Do _you_ think we should trust her?"

"I don't know," she replied uneasily, glancing over at Alicia. "Out of all the possible people to see us, it could have been a lot worse…"

"How do you know nobody else saw us, though," James interrupted, feeling his stomach disappear again. "The whole tower was awake, kept in their dorms, nothing to do except look out of the window…"

"They would have said something," Lily said, semi-confidently. "Either sought one of us out, like 'Licia, or trumpeted it to the skies."

"I guess." James sighed. "If it really was just her, though, I suppose we are just incredibly lucky."

"Don't jinx it now," Lily said. "So what do we do about 'Licia?"

James glanced over at the small brunette again before making a snap decision. "You say you trust her. Let's tell her the whole story and hope for the best."

"And if it goes wrong?"

"Well. There's always Memory Charms."

"Don't you dare, James Potter," Lily warned, before moving away form him towards Alicia. "Okay, sit," she said, motioning to one of the chairs behind the younger girl while pulling one up for herself and sitting down. "We may as well be comfortable," she said as James pulled up a seat next to her and sat down.

"You're telling me what happened out there?" Alicia asked incredulously, as she lowered herself into the chair. "I'd've thought you would've told me not to worry about it or something."

"I know you, Alicia," said Lily. "You wouldn't rest until you figure out a theory behind what you saw."

The younger girl looked down at her feet, blushing slightly. "Am I that predictable?"

"Probably," said James. "Anyway," he carried on hastily after a glare from Lily. "We decided to tell you the true story, which is probably crazier than you could ever think up by yourself."

"If you say so." Alicia looked unconvinced.

"James, is that today's newspaper?" Lily asked sharply, finally spotting what he was holding in his hand.

He winced. "Yes," he said quietly, handing the furled up paper to her.

Lily glanced once at the headline, her eyes widened, and she cast an eye over to Alicia then looked back at James, the question evident in her eyes.

James shook his head imperceptibly. _No, she hasn't seen it, not yet…_

Lily nodded, and settled back to read. James sighed mentally. _I guess that means I'm doing the talking…_

"So, Alicia," he said, looking over at her. "What's your take on werewolves?"

The girl now looked more confused than ever. "Erm, neutral, I guess," she said hesitantly. "My mum's muggle-born, so she doesn't really know, and I don't think my dad has an opinion…"

James exhaled in relief. _Perfect._ "What do you think of Remus Lupin?"

"Eh?" Alicia blinked.

Lily threw him a look over the newspaper, which he clearly read as_subtle_. He shrugged back at her.

"I don't know him that well, but he's a prefect, isn't he?" Alicia said slowly. "And he seems to be a nice person anyway; doesn't he always go and see his mum every month when she gets ill…" Her eyes widened. Apparently she'd just had an epiphany. "He's a werewolf, isn't he?"

"Yes," James said while Lily nodded approvingly. "What are you thinking?" he asked Alicia with narrowed eyes.

"I'm surprised," she answered promptly, "though I shouldn't really be, I suppose. I could have worked it out if I'd just noticed it. I'm rather shocked, but…" she trailed off, thinking. "Let's just say I believe in Lily enough to trust her not to go out with a guy who's friends with someone as fierce and scary and mad as the stories say."

James sniggered mentally. _I see why Lily likes her._ "True," he said aloud. "But…" he hesitated. Just how many of their secrets could they trust her with?

"Tell me what you think will satisfy my curiosity," Alicia told him. "Nothing more, nothing less."

Lily chuckled. "We've always said that you're a pure Gryffindor, James. You always wear your emotions on your face."

James grumbled, trying to wipe his face clean of emotions, ready to start afresh. "Am I that easy to read?"

"Probably," Alicia agreed.

_Clever, sharp, and a good memory. No getting around this one._

"How's the paper?" he asked Lily now.

"Remus cast to look like the bad villain, just short of using Dark Magic to manage to mingle with ordinary folk for so long. His friendship with Sirius even though he's already been disowned from the 'Black family, documented as having a Dark side' completely corrupted out of proportion, you looked over and Peter not mentioned at all. Severus is the innocent unsuspecting victim…"

"Wait," Alicia interrupted. "I'm missing something."

"Sorry." Lily looked chagrined. "The short and sweet of it is, last night was a Full Moon. Sirius got drunk and 'accidentally' told Severus how to get into the secure holding place—"

"He stays at Hogwarts on transformation nights?"

"It's safe, believe me," James said. "It's completely safe, and the wolf would never be able to get to Hogwarts on its own."

"I'll believe you," Alicia said, even though her face clearly said _only because I have no other choice right now_.

"The thing is," Lily said again, "last night, the wolf smelt a human, and for once, it wasn't barricaded and held back. The results were not good."

Alicia's breath caught. "Is Snape dead?" she asked.

Lily and James exchanged uneasy glances. "We don't know," Lily said finally. "He was alive after the attack, but in a bad way…"

The younger girl nodded slightly as she assimilated the new information. "So what's that got to do with—" she stopped herself, eyes suddenly wide open.

James opened his mouth to say something, but Lily laid her hand on his. He turned to face her, and saw her frowning, shaking her head. _Wait._

"Sirius Black… He tried to kill himself, didn't he?" Alicia was saying now. "He'd blabbed while drunk, and now he's ruined the lives of both Lupin and Snape…"

James winced.

"Not very tactful or elegant," Lily said, "but correct in the essentials. I told you she was good." The last was directed at James.

"Yes, you did, and I can see the proof now."

Alicia was blushing, and she said quickly, "But how did the attack stop? I thought that a wolf wouldn't stop until its prey was dead or got away, and I can't see Severus Snape outrunning a werewolf."

_Yes, she's good. Damn sharp as well…_

Lily turned towards him expectantly. Alicia followed her gaze.

James sighed. "You realise that if I do explain everything to satisfy your curiosity, I'll wind up telling you all my darkest secrets," he said to Alicia.

"Not before you tell them to me first," Lily cut in tartly. "Now, explain to the girl."

"Okay." _Here goes._ "Well, Sirius and me noticed something odd about Remus roundabout our second year, and so Peter and the two of us confronted Moony about it, asking if he was a werewolf. He was kind of distraught that we'd figured it out, so we tried to find a way to help him, to pay him back for nearly busting his game. In the end, we twigged that werewolves were only a danger to humans, not animals."

"And this helps you how?" Alicia asked.

"_Animals,_ Alicia. We wanted to be there for Moony, but we couldn't, not as humans. As animals, however…" James stood up, moved to a space, stretched and rolled his shoulders, before bending forwards.

_Tall body, large, horizontal… heavy antlers that feel powerful enough to crash through walls… long and sprightly legs, strong and able to run long distances at high speed…_

He heard two gasps: a shocked one from Alicia, and an appreciative one from Lily.

"They became Animagi?" Alicia whispered, stunned.

"Magnificent, isn't he?" Lily's eyes ran up and down, back and forth across his body.

James rolled his eyes and transformed back. "There's only so much complimenting a man can take in a day, ladies," he said, returning to his chair.

Alicia's eyes were wide. "But…that's so dangerous…so much could go wrong…"

"We figured we'd take the risk. By fifth year, we could accompany Moony in his transformations." _I think I better leave out the 'roaming around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade in animal form' part. I don't need her to have a heart attack._

"There's a glint in your eye," Lily observed to Alicia. "It means, 'teach me how'."

The younger girl coloured and looked down.

"I just thought… If they could do it, why can't I try…"

_Definitely a miniature Lily in the making._ "We'll talk about this later," he said to her. "But right now, all you need to know is that last night, Sirius came to me, all drunk and proud about sending Snape to the W…the hiding place. I went, got there too late, but fought the wolf off of Sniv…Severus and got them both to safety."

"You fought a werewolf?"

James laughed internally. _I do it every month._ He rolled up his sleeves to let her see where Madame Pomfrey had quickly patched him up last night.

"Show off," Lily murmured to him while Alicia's eyes went yet wider.

"And proud of it."

"How could I ever question that?" Lily asked wryly as Alicia recovered somewhat.

"Why are you trusting me with this?" she asked sharply. "Even if Lupin being a werewolf is splashed all over the papers, the fact that you three are Animagi is a big secret."

Lily and James exchanged a glance, then he threw caution to the winds.

"We need a favour," he said bluntly.

An eyebrow went up. "A favour?"

"We do?" Lily asked.

"Your mother works in the RCMC, doesn't she?" James asked, flashing a _Watch me_ sign in Lily's direction before remembering that she didn't understand Marauder signs yet.

"At the moment, yes," Alicia said. "Why?"

"You know that Moony—Remus—is in there now?"

"Not until you told me, but I should've worked it out anyway, but carry on?"

James blinked before doing as he as bid. "How much leeway do you have over your mum?" he asked now.

He heard Lily's "Oh" of understanding, and wondered if the girl he was interrogating had caught on yet.

"If I bring her a proposition and reasons behind it, she'll look at it with a fair mind and make a calculated decision."

_That'll be a yes._ "You know what I'm going to ask, don't you?"

"I was wondering how long you'd keep asking me these questions."

"Okay. So, bluntly… can you ask your mum if she'll let Remus have visitors?"

"How many?"

He looked at Lily. She mouthed, "everyone."

"Seven."

"I can ask. I'll need pretty good reasons, though."

"What we've told you isn't enough?"

"It doesn't say exactly why you need to visit him."

James looked at Lily for help.

"Alicia," she said. "Think about it. Remus has just been arrested for no reason that he can remember, and if it's ever explained to him, he'll not be happy with Sirius. Sirius deserves to be able to explain and/or apologise face to face with Remus, and Remus deserves to be able to hear him out. We've explained how James, Sirius and Peter went to the lengths of becoming Animagi for Remus. They're incredibly close for a bunch for teenage wizards, and we all know that Hell is being set loose right now. They need some time together."

Alicia looked slightly doubting, but considering. "And why do you need the other four? I'm guessing it's you, Letha Freeman, Danger Granger and Evanie Mead?"

"Moral support?"

Alicia frowned, but seeing as it was coming from Lily, she let it slide.

"Okay," said Lily, standing up. "I think this session is winding to a close. Alicia, you get the_Daily Prophet_, don't you? Read it, but take it with a bucketful of salt. And _eat_, properly, or I'll call off the next tutoring session."

"Yes, Lily," Alicia replied, standing up herself and pushing her chair back where she'd got it from.

"Not a word about this to anyone, remember," James warned.

"Don't worry, I'm not stupid."

"I'll have to trust you on that."

"Speaking of trust…" Lily suddenly got a wicked grin on her face. "Alicia, you know when you said that you trusted me enough not to go out with a guy who's best friends with the monstrous raving beast stories paint werewolves to be?"

Alicia nodded, warily.

"You're wrong."

"Eh?"

"You said 'going out with'." For the second time that day, Lily put her left hand in front of James', so both rings were on display.

James could feel his face burning as Lily giggled and Alicia's jaw succumbed to gravity again. Quickly, he pulled his arm away and escaped from the classroom before the squealing could start.

_What is it with girls and wedding plans the moment anyone says 'engaged'?_ he thought as he made his way back to the passageway. Lily was likely to be a while.

* * *

Minerva shook open the _Daily Prophet_ and sighed at the inevitable headline story. 

"How bad is it?" asked John Lupin from the other side of Remus' bed.

"Not as bad as it could have been," Minerva allowed. "It's not taking up the full newspaper." She gave a mirthless smile. "Just most of it."

John gave a half-hearted growl of frustration, which trailed off into a sigh. "I guess I should count our blessings, few as they seem right now. At least we have one supporter." He motioned towards the door that Felicity Davidson had left through a few minutes ago.

"More than just one," Minerva reminded him bracingly. "There are Remus' friends at school; I'm sure that they and their families will all stand behind you."

John raised an eyebrow at her. "Sirius Black's family?"

"The Potters have all but adopted young Mr. Black," Minerva pointed out. "They, the Pettigrews, and the Meads are sure to be supportive."

"And Lily and Aletha and Danger are Muggle-born," John said dully.

"David and Rose Granger live close to you, do they not?" Minerva asked. "Do you know them well?"

"Only by association," John replied. "I bump into them every now and again…"

"They will support you," Minerva said firmly. "Even if not in the trial, they will stand behind you and help you wherever they can."

"I hope so." John laid his head in his hands, elbows digging into Remus' mattress. "There's so much to think about now," he said, the sound coming out muffled. "The trial…lawyers…"

"I will be helping you, John," she said, using his first name. "I can help you find a good lawyer—pro-werewolf, of course, or at least one neutral enough to put general wizarding prejudice behind him. I have family and family friends who many be sympathetic and know good recommendations."

"Thank you, Professor," John said sincerely, lifting his head to look at her.

"It is all I can do, John. Also, you are no longer my student, so you have no need to address me as 'Professor' any longer."

John gave a wry grin. "You'll always be Professor McGonagall to me, Professor…"

"I never thought any different," she said dryly. "You were one of my first students at Hogwarts, if you'll recall. And quite frankly, I can see where Remus gets it from."

"You mean the extra studying and essays around twenty inches over what was asked?" he grinned at her.

"And the pink dye all over everybody's Christmas dinner in your fifth year, if I remember correctly."

John almost laughed out loud. "I knew that you'd figured out it was me—I kept wondering why you didn't call me up for it."

Minerva raised her eyes to the heavens, a smile gracing her thin lips. "I was young and naïve in those days," she said with not a small amount of irony in her voice. "I let it pass."

"Oh, stop it," John said, managing a quiet, but real laugh. "You're making me feel old, Professor."

"Now consider how old _I_ feel when I find myself teaching the children of my former students," she told him. "But returning to my former point; you have long since earned the right to call me by Minerva."

She chuckled at the sight of John pulling another face at her. "But truthfully, Professor. Calling you anything other than Professor or Professor McGonagall goes against my morals."

"I shall just have to break you into the habit over time, then," she said. Immediately she regretted saying that sentence. At the word 'time', John had glanced down at his watch and looked back at Remus worriedly. She cursed herself for ruining the light mood she'd managed to build up.

"Time…" John was muttering. "How much time do we have left?" He stretched a hand up towards Remus' hair, then pulled back quickly, as though afraid of wasting even a second with what he wanted to do. "A week and a half until the trial…that's all the time we have to organize a somewhat coherent defense…" John seemed to crumble again, the small vestiges of laughter erasing themselves from his face.

"You'll have help," Minerva said again. _If I have anything to do with it, anyway._

"What about his education?" John asked distractedly, apparently not having heard her at all. "He's only six months away from taking his NEWTs, how's he going to manage exams while stuck in a cell in Azkaban?"

"Stop," she said firmly. "He's not going to go to Azkaban."

"How do you know?"

"Werewolf cells in Azkaban are very few," said Minerva, trying to remember the policies she had read. "They take up a lot of space and have to be far apart, with multiple layers of walls and doors. There are only a few, and are used purely for multiple offenders. 'Warning' imprisonments, as they are called, are kept in cells under St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries."

"I thought that was just a rumour," John said, surprised. "I didn't think it was actually true…"

"The Ministry didn't think it would be a good idea for the public to know about it," Minerva explained. "It was predicted that if the knowledge was leaked out, there would be many revolts and protests against the idea. Prejudiced as the government is, they can only recognise that werewolves are counted as human during times other than Full Moon nights, and so deserving of medical care." She gave another bitter smile. "One of their only—and in their opinion, kindest concessions."

"I applaud them for it," John said, lapsing back into dullness. "He'll still be imprisoned."

Minerva tried to rack her brains for werewolf sentences, but drew a blank. "Have you researched werewolf laws?" she asked John.

"I couldn't bring myself to," he replied in a monotone.

Minerva nodded. In her experience, family members would either learn all they could possibly get their hands on about the laws, or try to ignore them, only reading up on the first required laws.

"Remus is looking better than I would have expected him to," she said, by way of breaking the awkward silence that was about to fall.

"He's sleeping." John looked at Remus. "What was that spell that Felicity Davidson used on him, when she said that he wasn't really asleep?" he asked distractedly.

Minerva shrugged. "It's unlikely that Felicity would get the spell wrong, so I can only think that Remus is subconsciously forcing himself unconscious."

John nodded, probably not listening to a word she said. "He looks so peaceful."

"Be thankful," said Minerva. _For the next few days are unlikely to be peaceful at all…_

She didn't know how right she was.

* * *

An owl fluttered through an open window. 

Albus Dumbledore looked up from his steady vigil outside the hospital wing at the tawny owl now perched on the windowsill, and frowned at what it carried.

_Surely it is not already breakfast time…my presence will be missed at the staff table._

_But,_ he thought as he untied the _Prophet_ from the owl's leg, _there are far more pressing matters to attend to._

Still, though, his mind drifted to the Great Hall of Hogwarts School, as glorious and splendid as it always would be at breakfast times. How he loved sitting in his throne-like chair at the front of the room, and look down at his students. The children would be chattering and carefree, the biggest of their worries being Quidditch and homework. Albus could remember those days clearly himself; all the joy and sprightliness of youth and freedom.

Nothing was more heavy than age and responsibility, he reflected, sitting back down, his body groaning, and staring dispassionately at the furled newspaper in his hand.

Age and responsibility…and he had managed to gain both.

It was not such a good thing, Albus ruefully mused, to have a good a mind as he did. His memory continually provided him with snapshots of when his life was unencumbered, his conscience with steadily longer lists of things to do. And there were times when hard decisions were to be made.

The aforementioned memory of his chose this moment to remind him of a time, seven years ago, when he made a great decision, one that changed the lives of many people. Had the ministry gotten wind of it, he would have been taken straight down from his Headmaster position at Hogwarts, not even that long after he'd ascended to it. But he always believed the best in people, and so Remus Lupin entered Hogwarts.

If he'd had the chance, would he have decided different, he wondered idly, before quashing the thought.

_Of course not. You have seen the wonderful change in Remus when he came here, not to mention the changes of Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black. There is no doubt that James Potter, Lily Evans, Aletha Freeman, Evanie Mead and Danger Granger would all be different if Remus never came to Hogwarts, as well as many other people._

But Severus Snape…

Albus loathed the phrase 'sacrifice the few to save the many,' but he could see that it was the only way to go about some situations. As long as damage was kept to a minimum…

_So, in retrospect, as long as Severus survives, this really isn't as bad as it could possibly have been._ There had always been a nagging worry, a little doubt in the back of his head, one of his many thoughts, true especially strong on a Full Moon night. What if his cautions weren't strong enough? What if, somehow, a werewolf would be set loose on a castle full of students, or a village full of people…

"Headmaster?"

Albus' head jerked upwards at the sound of Poppy Pomfrey's voice, and he laid the still-unopened newspaper down as he stood up.

"How is Severus?" he asked as she shut the hospital wing doors.

"He should be fine," she replied tiredly but triumphantly, and Albus felt a huge load lift off his shoulders. "I couldn't prevent the lycanthropy—that would have been impossible—and he shall have scars, but I was able to stem and prevent mortal wounds." She sank into the chair Albus had just vacated, while he closed his eyes and sighed in relief, slowly.

"Thank you, Poppy," he said sincerely, opening his eyes and smiling down at the woman. "I cannot express my gratitude enough…"

"It's just my job." Poppy waved him off, looking rather embarrassed. "And haven't you looked at this yet?" She held up the _Daily Prophet_ and looked at him enquiringly. "I'm sure the owl came five minutes or so ago…"

"I was woolgathering, my dear Poppy. An old man's thoughts that would not be coherent nor understandable to you."

"Don't start making me feel young, Headmaster, we all know that I'm no teenager."

"Indeed." Albus chuckled.

Poppy had opened the newspaper, and within seconds her lips had furled in disgust. Mentally, Albus sighed. He had dreaded this day, and hoped it would never come. He could much guess the contents of the paper without even looking, and was completely sure that he would be facing an inquiry of some sort in the near future.

Still, though, he was prepared. He'd been prepared since the day he thought this might happen.

A newspaper being flung down to the floor interrupted his thoughts. "Sensationalist exaggerating spin reporters," Poppy hissed. "_Both_ of those boys are victims, _both_ of them."

"Poppy?"

"I apologise, Headmaster. I've become close with Remus the past few years…"

"Completely understandable, my dear."

"What about their parents?" she asked suddenly. "The Snapes and John Lupin?"

Albus didn't ask how she knew John Lupin now only lived on his own. "Minerva is breaking the news to Mr. Lupin, and Horace is handling the Snapes."

Poppy winced. "Correct me if I am mistaken, Headmaster, but are the Snapes…well…not a close family?"

"No, Poppy, you are right." Albus sighed again. "Tobias Snape was less than happy at the revelation of magic, and young Severus has not had an easy childhood."

"How will he cope, poor thing? Lycanthropy isn't easy to deal with at the best of times, and if his family is unsupportive…"

"We will help him," Albus told her. "My greatest dread at the moment, on the other hand," he confided, "is Severus' reaction himself."

"I agree," Poppy said. "So you think he might not take it well?"

Albus shook his head gravely. "I sincerely doubt it. How long before he wakes up?"

Poppy shrugged. "Anything between two and twelve hours. Can't be any more specific than that."

"Would it be too much hassle to ask you to keep an eye on him and be right there when he wakes?"

Poppy gestured around. "I won't be going anywhere."

"Thank you, dear."

"It's not a problem, Headmaster."

* * *

Watching from the shadow of a statue based on the corner of the corridor, she saw Dumbledore stride away from her, presumably returning to his office or going to the Great Hall, and Madame Pomfrey bustle back into the hospital wing. 

_I shouldn't be doing this…I REALLY shouldn't be doing this…_

But a small part of her kept telling her that she had to. They might have grown apart, and they might be in social groups, which were forever warring each other…but the fact remained that he had been her best friend. He had been the one to welcome her to the Wizarding World, while she had been the one to comfort him and listen to him when things got rough at home.

She had headed Alicia off not long after they'd been left alone in the classroom, cutting down the amount of squealing and sending her off to eat her breakfast so she could slip off while James still thought she was being heavily involved in wedding plans.

It wasn't a great start to their engagement, Lily reflected ruefully. Other than the arrest of one of their best friends and the impending fight against the rest of the world, she was already keeping secrets away from her fiancé. But James didn't understand her relationship with Severus—he _couldn't_ understand. She honestly loved James with all of her heart, but sometimes he just couldn't see into all of hers.

Shaking herself from her musings and deeming the corridor empty enough, she slithered out from behind the statue and tiptoed her way to the hospital wing door in the shadows. She pushed open the door quietly and slipped inside.

Madame Pomfrey was bustling about, clearing away potion bottles. She looked up as Lily entered the room. "Yes?"

Lily's heart sank. _There go my plans of a private, secret talk._ "May I speak to—well, see Severus please, Madame Pomfrey?"

"Severus Snape?" The matron frowned. "I'm not sure—"

"I won't be too long," Lily pressed on quickly. She was certain that time wasn't the most important thing on Madame Pomfrey's mind when she first objected, but she hoped that the nurse would let her through anyway.

Madame Pomfrey's frown became all the more pronounced. After a few moments of looking at Lily up and down and presumably deciding that the Head Girl would keep to her word, she said, "Very well then," and motioned Lily to one of the beds to her left. "But I warn you, it's not pretty."

Lily let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, and quickly followed Madame Pomfrey behind the curtains of the bed. She quickly stifled a gasp when her eyes laid sight on Severus.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been, Lily supposed. His face wasn't mangled beyond recognition; in fact, it'd barely lost any shape whatsoever. However, there were long and deep scars going across his face, one only narrowly missing his eye. He'd had some hair torn out, and the point of his nose savaged some. He lay still beneath the white sheet; only the slight rise and fall of his chest convincing her that he wasn't some corpse from a horror movie.

"Oh, Severus," she said quietly, slipping into his bedside chair and dimly registering Madame Pomfrey leaving them silently. She wanted to reach out to him, to hold his hand, but she was afraid of harming him in any way. Instead, she contented herself with just laying her hands on the side of the bed.

"Why?" she whispered finally. "Why did you listen to Sirius when he told you to go down into the tunnel? You _know_ what he thinks about you, and you _know_ what he's like when he's drunk, and _hell_ should you have known not to do anything he says." She sighed, making sure that she kept her voice well below any level classified as 'loud'.

"Was it just pride, Sev? Was it you boys and your stupid male ego? There's more to life than pride and getting back at people who pick on you. Sirius dared you go do down, didn't he? And you couldn't bear to let him think that you were_weak_, because you couldn't _dare_ to do something he told you to do." Lily sighed. "You boys and your status games are so annoying."

"Do you remember, Sev, we used to be able to tell each other anything. We were best friends. I always stuck up for you if my friends began talking, and generally…well…bitching about you. On the outside, you might come across as a snide, poor, Dark person, but nobody really knows you. You might call Rosier, Avery and Mulciber your 'friends', but they're not, really, are they? The don't know the real you, the you inside." Lily paused to rearrange Severus' sheets, taking care not to jostle him.

"Was I the only person you ever let that close to you? You are a really sweet person inside, you know. You try to hide it, by getting angry or making a witty remark, don't you? That you, Sev, that real you was the person who was my best friend. That tough, ambitious mask of yours has always scared me to some extent, even though I understand how you got it and why you need it to survive. It frightened me sometimes, and that mask got stronger and stronger as time went on. That was where Avery and the people came in, isn't it? Ambitiousness, the Dark Arts."

Lily sighed and ran her fingers through her red hair, fighting the tears attempting to form in her eyes. "And I didn't like that, Sev, not at all. I know the real you, and I know you're still there. But that time, year before last, when you called me a Mudblood in public like that…that just snapped everything into view for me, Sev. You outer mask, the image that had become the front you present to everyone—it had become so strong. Too strong. Your pride, your need to make Avery and Mulciber accept you…it had overcome the you who had told me, so many years ago, that coming from a Muggle family didn't matter. And I couldn't stay friends with you after that. I didn't want to see you transform into someone like Mulciber.

"But you're still there, aren't you? You're still in there. You're not completely gone yet."

Lily's voice turned pleading. "I know you're a werewolf now, Sev, Think of Rosier and Lestrange, and all their status games. Will they still accept you, _all_ that you are? You hid the inner you from them. You won't be able to hide it now. So please, Sev. Come to me, and James, and Danger. I noticed she's been spending a lot of time with you. We can all help. We all accept you, as you are. You probably don't believe that James does, but if he doesn't, he will, I promise. He's the same as you, with an outer front to present to the rest of the world, and so different inside. Please. Get to know him more. I'll persuade him." _And he'll listen to me. Or else._

"And I know it's the Marauders who got you into this mess. Believe me when I say that Sirius is truly sorry for what he did. He was drunk, he wasn't thinking, but what he did was wrong. I don't deny that. But I can't deny how sorry he is—he tried to drown himself, Sev. He tried to kill himself." Lily shuddered again as she recalled the events of the last hour.

"And Remus…think of it, Sev. It wasn't his fault at all. He had no idea what was happening at the time, but he's still the one about to be punished by the Ministry."

Lily sighed again. Why was she trying to convince her old best friend to try and sympathise with his archenemies? It would take a miracle for that to happen.

_Add in the fact that he is, in fact, unconscious, and I've got the perfect recipe for a lot of wasted breath._

She glanced at the clock, and decided that it was probably about time she got back to everyone else. James could only be fooled for so long, after all. "I should get going, Sev." She brushed a clean part of his face gently with her lips, stood up and walked out of the hospital wing.

* * *

He was drowning, drowning in a sea of numbness and pain just beyond reach. Sounds burbled into his ears from a great distance, warped, sounding strange, as if from a badly tuned radio. 

There was someone talking. A girl. He knew her, he knew her well…but something had happened between them, and they'd split apart…

A feeling resided in his chest whenever he thought of her. It was bitterness. She had been his best, closest friend, but he had wanted her to be more. And he'd try to 'protect' her from other people, feeling uncontrollable jealousy whenever she was with anyone else. But every time he'd tried to raise the subject with her, she'd smile—a small, sad smile, and say that she didn't think they were meant for each other that way.

It was a part of why he resented…_him_ so much. _He_ had wanted her, had tried to win her over. He couldn't let that go without doing anything.

And yet, despite all her assurances that she'd never like_him_ anyway, she'd gone and done it…she'd fallen for that bigheaded, arrogant, _person_.

And he…had been left on his own.

What was it that she was saying? It wasn't reaching his mind properly, but he could still hear some of it. He tried reaching out towards that voice he so loved, but the out-of-reach pain sharpened. He sank once again down in dark oblivion, with words from a soft, feminine voice following him under.

* * *

The atmosphere in the tunnel had retained its light-hearted cheerfulness, but Letha couldn't help but feel that it was getting strained. A slight tenseness had formed, with laughter and jokes feeling forced rather than natural. 

It was that newspaper article, she reflected in disgust. Evanie and Peter had brought a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ up with breakfast. Letha almost wished that they hadn't—it might be nice to be informed, but sometimes ignorance seemed more attractive. It would definitely have been a marginally better morning if they hadn't had to see what the Daily Prophet was making its readers—or basically the whole wizarding world—think about the situation.

Still, despite the article's glaring prejudices and manipulative phrases, they couldn't help but feel slightly superior. There were so many gaps in the newspaper account that they could fill, so many parts of the story left untold.

Not that they wanted the world to know most of those things, of course, but it definitely made them set apart, for once in the middle of things rather than being spectators.

_Now, really and truly, it's us against the world._

And the thought of that, really and truly, was bloody terrifying.

"Hey, Letha?" Evanie's voice broke into her thoughts. "Can you pass the prophecy over here?"

Letha blinked, looking around and seeing the parchment with the prophecy written on it lying about two feet to her left. She picked it up and handed it to Evanie, who had a few pieces of toast in front of her. "Going to try and decipher some more of it?"

"I am." Evanie took the parchment and smiled at her in thanks. "I always find that I think best over breakfast."

"Really?" James broke into their conversation. "Breakfast is far too early for me."

"Any time before mid-afternoon is too early for you," laughed Lily, who'd just come back in to the tunnel to hear James' last sentence.

"Back, are you?" James asked, mock-grumpily. "You took your time. What _do_ you girls talk about?"

"Things that you boys would be neither interested nor have the time to hear about. So have you told them about our conversation with 'Licia?"

Only someone very close to Lily and very good at picking up subtle details would have noticed Lily's slightly rushed change of topic. Letha was both, and so did notice; James fulfilled the former requirement but lacked the latter, and, having not noticed a thing, launched into a summation of what he and Lily talked about with Alicia Davidson. Letha, figuring she'd be able to ask Lily about it and whatever it was that was bothering her later, instead sank back into her own thoughts.

Being far more astute and atmosphere-sensitive than usual, Sirius had picked up on the tense underlay beneath the forced lightness in the air and sank back into the corner looking guilty again. Letha sighed inwardly, wishing she knew what to do. On the one hand was the fact that she loved him, even when he was stupid and did stupid things. But there was the undeniable, irrefutable fact that he had gone beyond what she'd thought him capable of—he'd sent a man to his death. He needed to face the consequence of his actions.

_But he needs some sort of support. Yes, what he did was wrong, and yes, he needs to learn this lesson, so he thinks things over before he does something. I don't think he's going to touch a bottle of anything the slightest bit alcoholic for a long time now as it is._

_He has to realise that not everything's sunshine and bunnies any more. Pulling harmless pranks is one thing—life and death and law is another. Maturing is a part of life, something he has to do on his own._

_Though…having to do something on his own doesn't mean he can't have help, or support. Just one encouraging word in his ear can make the world of difference, and holding his hand through difficult times make the self-sorrow hurry past faster and the learning happen quicker._

_Not necessarily. Remember, sometimes when he studies, other people explaining to him or trying to help him just don't work, and he only really understands after he reads the textbook properly and thinks it over to himself in his own terms. Getting distracted won't help in the slightest._

_But life ISN'T a textbook, and besides, he always does better in Potions after I explained it to him._

_How are you sure that he was concentrating on the work rather than the explainer?_

_…and why am I referring to myself in the second person?_

Letha sighed to herself and glanced over at Sirius again. He seemed utterly woebegone, looking guilty and lost.

She thought back to the scene in the dungeons, when she'd slapped him and yelled at him, and winced at some of the things she'd said to him. She blamed herself partly for his little swim—hell, it was probably _all_ her fault if it wasn't for Sirius taking her literally—and she could admit to herself that many of the things she said, as always when she was angry, weren't rational. She was angry with what he'd done, but while it couldn't be completely blamed on the Firewhiskey, she'd heard that he'd had enough last night to completely blur and almost erase his judgement.

And the consequences that had followed… They were too big, far too big to be handled on his own. Snape had nearly died, and there was less than a fortnight until Remus' trial. They all needed all the help and support they could get.

* * *

He huddled in the corner, watching them all chatting and laughing, all of them aware that the others were forcing it but each of them trying to make the façade go on for as long as possible. 

He didn't know why they bothered, really.

He'd seen the _Daily Prophet_ article. He'd seen what everyone was saying, what was going to happen. The enormity of what it was that he'd done—that _he'd_ done—was pressing down heavily all around him. It tainted every breath that he breathed, and weighed down his limbs more than mere exhaustion could.

_How did those people whose names appear in the paper so often handle it?_ he thought. _How do they make one small action, and then take it in their stride after seeing it splashed all over the media and watching the world react? Don't they ever feel overwhelmed, and terrified?_

It certainly summed up what he was feeling right now. Overwhelmed, and absolutely bloody terrified.

Terrified of what had happened, terrified of what was going to happen…terrified of himself, of what he'd been able to do. Terrified of his friends, and what they thought of him now.

He lifted his head to look at Prongs, who was giving a slightly too spirited report of a meeting they'd had with a third year who'd almost sussed them out. Prongs…his closest friend, the nearest thing to a brother he had. His partner in crime, co-ring-leader, the other part of their two of a kind.

James, who had called him a traitor, who'd accused him—rightfully—of betraying their trust and of being an unthinking, drunk idiot. Who'd hit him and hadn't been able to properly look him in the eye since.

Sitting close next to Evanie and listening attentively while still managing to eat his breakfast properly was Wormtail. Little, chubby Wormtail who'd always blundered through everything and never got anything right, all but hero-worshipping the two of them who were able to protect him. He was their little brother, who they despaired of sometimes but were always around for him, to help, whether with work or when he was being bullied. They'd all celebrated when he found a girlfriend, and watched him blossom into the more confident, cheerful and generally Marauder-like young man he was at last.

So what did Peter think of him now, with his newly found ability to have an opinion and hold it? Was he angry as well? Did he hate him now? Was he a traitor, a drunk and a complete idiot in Peter's eyes as well?

And Moony. The most down-to-earth and practical of the lot of them. Moony loved his pranks just as much as any other of them, but he'd had caution drummed into his nature. Risks, for him, had to be kept to a minimum. He'd tell them to be careful, and to deflate their heads, and to an extent, it worked.

He'd trusted them with his darkest secret, trusted them not to tell.

And now Remus was stuck at the Ministry, facing a trial in nine days, because he'd been stupid enough to ruin everything. Remus said that he forgave him, but did he really, deep down? Was it just that he thought he was in too deep to be angry? Maybe it was only because of some poem in iambic tetrameter that he'd said the meaningless words.

A small movement startled him at his side, and he turned around to see Aletha sitting down next to him tentatively. He looked at her in surprise, and she responded by shuffling closer and holding his hand. When he continued to blink at her, her fingers squeezed reassuringly, and she offered a quiet smile.

He had no idea why Letha was doing this, but was glad she did.

A small, warm seed of hope and resilience dropped back into Sirius Black's chest, sparking off the start of the fight against the world.

And now Remus was stuck at the Ministry, facing a trial in nine days, because he'd been stupid enough to ruin everything. Remus said that he forgave him, but did he really, deep down? Was it just that he thought he was in too deep to be angry? Maybe it was only because of some poem in iambic tetrameter that he'd said the meaningless words.

A small movement startled him at his side, and he turned around to see Aletha sitting down next to him tentatively. He looked at her in surprise, and she responded by shuffling closer and holding his hand. When he continued to blink at her, her fingers squeezed reassuringly, and she offered a quiet smile.

He had no idea why Letha was doing this, but was glad she did.

A small, warm seed of hope and resilience dropped back into Sirius Black's chest, sparking off the start of the fight against the world.

* * *

**A/N: **Review, purlease::applies dolphin eyes:: 

Anyway.

There seem to be two main issues that I see coming up from how this story is going. One, or A, people think that I'm letting Sirius free too lightly. Following on from that, as a 1.b) or an A(ii) is that they're blaming him for the wrong thing. Coming in at 1.c) or A(iii), the Marauders seem to not really care that much for Remus. Two, or B, is the "Snape-bashing"

Now, 1.a) or A(i): Letting Sirius go too lightly. To a point, yes, I am. Let me present the scenario in my head:

The wizarding world is screwed up thousands of different ways. They're not gonna **care** if it was Sirius who told Snape where to find the werewolf: they're just gonna blame it on the werewolf itself. So that just leaves the Marauders themselves to judge. Now, I'm no way saying that said Marauders are perfect. James and Sirius in particular are stuck-up, arrogant prats who would've gone through life--or at least adolescence--not caring for anyone except themselves. Remus and Peter were mild, rather loner-ish people when they first came to Hogwarts, who needed protection to start with, and later on more confidence. They managed to find all that they needed in each other; James and Sirius learnt how to care for someone other than themselves; Peter at first was able to gain protection against potential bullies, and then he got a girlfriend, letting him develop more; Remus found friends who loved him, for all that he was. All four of them bonded powerfully. But they're **still not perfect**. James and Sirius might care for people other than just themselves, but that caring, on a personal level, still just extends to the Marauders and Co; Remus and Peter still see the Marauders as their first real friends, so they might yell at Sirius, beat him up and such, but in the long run they almost literally **cannot** shun him for long. Plus, his little dip in the lake made that period considerably shorter. And the prophecy, as well.

1.b---bleh, this 'or' business is getting annoying. I'm just going to stick with the A(ii) because it looks better. Anyway. People saying that the Marauders are placing too much emphasis on Sirius betraying their secret, rather than nearly killing a guy. Think of how they're feeling right now--a **lot** of their trust and friendship is centered around Remus' secret. And like I said--their caring still really only extends within the Marauders and Co. Consider their past relationship with Severus Snape--they might feel remorse, but they can still only think of him as 'greasy little Snivellus'. Should remorse for that guy override their brotherly bond? Not a chance. (Please bear in mind that I in no way whatsoever believe that this is morally correct. It's just what I see happening when I consider the Marauders.)

A(iii) The Marauders ignoring Remus now they can talk to him via Danger. Well, maybe not ignoring him. But laughing and joking. Yes, they're happy. This does NOT mean that they don't care about Remus; they are happy that they've got a method of communication, and they're trying to lift his spirits by telling funny stories and making jokes, while not making it obvious that they're trying to do so. If it seems like he's being ignored...well, cut me some slack? I've got a dozen different POVs to juggle with and this is only my first major story.

And finally, B: the apparent Snape-bashing. Please note that the following rant is not aimed at the people who read the fic for the fic and request me to lighten up on Severus. This is aimed at the people who for some reason think I am writing this story purely because I hate Snape and want to make him suffer. Well, listen now: **I am not a Snape-basher.** I'm not a die-hard "omg alan rickm--I MEAN ma DAH-leeng sevvie snape iz da SCHMECK-SIEST guy in da wurld"-type fan either, but I always thought he was a good guy...uh..._deep_ down. No, I didn't change my mind after reading DH (I won't deny that I only got the idea for the Lily/Sev scene in the middle of this chapter after I read the book, though). The entire plotbunny that gave me the idea for this story was, simply, James getting there to save Severus too late. In fact, I was originally just going to have this as a one-shot, after the wolf killed Snape with the story being Remus getting 'put down' by the Ministry. (THEN I got the idea for linking it to Dangerverse, and see how it grew...) Okay, I'm really not helping my case. But the point is, I'm not making Severus injured and nearly dying for the heck of it: it's just the most realistic outcome after being mauled by a werewolf. Oh, and this is important: This is a **Marauder-centric **fic. It's about how the situation affects their friendship. It is **not** Snape-centric. It might include some of Snape, but it won't be following him through his trials and journeys as a werewolf in the wizarding world. Much. If you're complaining about the lack of emphasis on the guy...really, put aside the fanatic Snape-worshipping and think of the time period. The Marauders, frankly, don't give much of a crap about Sevvie, and all the teachers have a soft spot for the Marauders. This, however, does **not** mean that nobody cares about Severus: Lily does, and the teachers do as well. You just can't expect everything else to go SWOOOOSH because they're all biting their nails off over Snape.

The Marauders are **not** meant to be perfectly likable, really good guys. They're human, with all the limitations of such. If you don't like them, fine with me. If you don't like this fic, fine with me as well. I always knew it'd be controversial, but it's your choice to read it.

So...that's how I'm analysing it all. If you still have problems with how I'm depicting these characters, PM me and I'll try to address your issue. And again, if, even after all these ramblings of mine, you're still shaking your head in disgust...well, why are you still reading? Go find something you like better.

::waits patiently for flamers with a couple of dragons and a menacing, angry, hissing big kitty:: They're good little animals really, nothing to be scared of... ::douses the fireball that came out of one of the dragon's noses when he snorted::pats said dragon:: Now, c'mon, don't be **too** cruel to the poor, unsuspecting readers...


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